Vandrwad:War God
by ThatGuy666
Summary: kratos has succeded in throwing the world into chaos, now sent to a new world and thrown into a new fight, he will finish what he started by personally ripping Athenas head off, but will the power of a fallen god be enough to stop the harvesters.Godofwar
1. Chapter 1

I do not own God of War nor do I own vandred

This is probably one of the weirdest and most random crossovers ever, but I just don't give a damn

The pain was gone, the pain that had been with him for as long as he could remember had finally left him, the un-wielding pain seated deep in his heart was gone, and all that remained was loneliness and regret. The rage of his soul was replaced with a cold hollow feeling, as he felt his life leave him. Finally his journey of redemption, revenge, and destruction was on its last stretch and he could finally for the first time in his entire life be at peace.

Soon he will see his family, soon he will be able to hold and caress his wife, his one true love, the only woman to have ever looked past the rage and violence to see the part of him very few would believe existed the only woman he had ever felt connected with, both physically as well as emotionally. He will soon be with his daughter, his most valuable treasure, his precious little princess the one thing in kratos life that he would never change, she along with her mother were the greatest things that had ever happened to kratos, and he threw it all away for glory, he knows that now and he hates himself for it. After everything that has happened in his life he is happy, for the first time since he spilled the blood of the only people who ever cared about him that his life is now ending.

He looks around at the state of the world, a state he himself is responsible for. There is nothing left, the land has been swallowed up by the sea, and only the tallest mountains are visible about the crashing waves of an endless ocean. The world is dark the sun itself swallowed up by the darkness of his rage, the only light given to few reaming people alive come from the remaining fire scattered across the land and the moon, up in the sky as red as the blood he himself spilled on his mission of vengeance. The souls of the dead roam the earth their chains cut from the underworld when its king's soul was ripped out by his own hooks. Diseases infect those mortals who survived the genocide of the Olympians as well as the after affects of each god's death. The land is festered with never ending storms that threaten to destroy all what is remaining of a once great civilization overseen by the gods of Olympus, now the world mirrors what kratos life has been since his birth, Chaos.

He sits there now choking on his blood as the glowing blade of Olympus sticks threw his body, the power pulsating burning his flesh as it cuts him threw his entire body, his life ends how he has lived it, violent. He takes some satisfaction knowing his last act has ruined the plan his sister Athena had for humanity and the new rule to go along with the new world that he assumes Athena will be in charge of, all of the god s have ulterior motives to their actions, one of the few things he has learned from them threw the time he has spent with them along with their pettiness and arrogance.

"NO! That was meant for me! They will not know what to do with it" she screams, almost horrified at the sight of her ultimate power leaving his body spreading out to the world.

He's too tired to care, too tired to move, and most importantly too tired to go on anymore, he sees her float slowly towards him her transparent form grabbing the glowing blade and ripping the blade violently out of his chest, blood spurting out from the large grotesque wound in his chest, with her other hand she raised his head and forced his eyes up to look at her face.

"You disappoint me Spartan"

He laughs, he laughs with his dying breaths at the ghost like figure of his half sister as she turns and walk away from him throwing the blade, once thought of being the most powerful weapon of Zeus himself to the side as if it were nothing .He lays his body down still laughing as he bleeds out, his last conscious thoughts about his wife and child and what he will say to them when he sees them next, He has been separated from them in life because of his actions, he will be damned if they will stay separated in death.

Athena's pov

Hope spread all around her and into the world as Athena's rage began to rise from the ashes of her disbelief. Kratos, the destroyer of men and gods alike lay in a pool of his own blood ,nothing more than a lump of flesh and bone before her and giving his last strained breaths.

He was laughing her. Mocking her as he was nearing deaths door. Her, the only one who has ever helped him throughout his entire life, from his earliest years in Sparta to his declaration of war against Mt. Olympus.

Him, some bastard demi-god that should have been strangled at birth along with his whore of a mother. All the years of planning have been ruined by one last action of defiance on kratos's part, her only chance of usurping her father's thrown has past and now here she stands thinking of a plan B to control humanity.

He believes there is nothing she can do in her weakened state, nothing that can be done to undo what he had done, he was wrong. Though not as powerful as she once was she still had an ace up her sleeve, one final insult to kratos before he travels to what is left of the underworld to the family even she knows is waiting for him.

"You will never see your family again brother, I will make sure that die alone and you will spend eternity away from those you love"

With a satisfied smirk her fingertips began to glow in an unknown power, it soon traveled until it cover her hands in some unholy dark clue energy

"Say good-bye to this world kratos"

Kratos didn't dodge, he couldn't, and he lost too much of his strength and too much blood to even think about retaliation. The strange energy engulfed his body but he didn't care, so what if Athena got the last word, nothing mattered as long as if he got to see his family

A few seconds latter his body was gone leaving Athena alone on what was one the top of Mt. Olympus, thinking of ways she could regain the power of hope from humanity.

years later. some where in space

The initial sacking of the warship had gone well for the pirates of the planet majer, they had successfully over-powered the crew of turok space recruits and commandeered their vessel. They had just finished evacuating the members of the male crew when all hell broke loose. It seemed that the commander of the Turokean Warship felt that it was better to destroy his militaries flagship ,the Ikazuchi ,then allow it to get into the hands of the "vile "women.

So he, doing the most logical thing in his mind, fired a homing missile at his own ship, luckily, for the pirates at least, the ships main power force the paeksis seemed to have other plans, a split second before the missile blew up, the ship was teleported light years away.

When it was all said and done the two conjoined ships were on a alien world on the other side of the galaxy.

**In the reactor room of the newly transformed Ikazuchi**

The entire section of the ship was filled with large semi transparent crystals from top to bottom and all along the length of the floor was as well, things seemed to be quiet…several large armored mechanized suits the men of Turok called Vanguards were littered across the room covered by the same type of crystals.

It seemed that several people were there as well; particularly three young women were all sprawled out all across the room unconscious. The first that regain consciousness seemed to be the leader of the small group of women, Meia Gibson, the young dred commander of the pirates, she was 18 and stood about 5'6 and had a very athletic figure showing off her well defined curves that would have attracted the eyes of anyone who knew how to appreciate the female figure. Her hair was cut to a short boyish style, which still suited her well. Her skin had a light cream complexion and on the left side of her face, was a strange metal circlet that still didn't mar her appearance nor break away the glitter or seriousness of her blue-green eyes. She also wore a form-fitting suit that was gray, black, and white that also showed her curves even more

The aqua haired Dread pilot leader moved a bit away from wear she lay and looked for her two comrades…

"Is… everyone alright?" Meia asked as she looked around the room and for a brief moment worry flooded her as she saw neither of her comrades, after a few seconds she saw a heap of blonde hair and recognized it instantly.

"Jura! Are you all right?"

Jura Basil Elden was a 20 year old buxom blonde who was stunningly beautiful, the problem was she knew she was as beautiful as everyone thought she was.

She was 5'9, and had long beautiful blonde hair that traveled down to her lower back along with deep emerald green eyes that would have been hypnotizing for any man To add further weight to the package, she was dressed in a dress that had her front exposed up to her belly button which exposed her front well, with only two flaps of the soft and comfortable material covering her more than ample breasts and those were held by a ring on the collar of the outfit, there were also slits on the lower dress, reaching up to her hips, revealing her long legs and her feet were covered in soft boots at ankle length. Her arms were bare but she wore special sleeves that were held to her arms by brown straps of soft and comfortable leather.

The blonde groaned a bit as she lowly was awoken by her leader's questions, she turned over and opened her eyes and looked around her surroundings and was happy to note that she was very much in one piece and thankfully still breathing.

"I think so…I don't feel anything broken anyway."

Meia sighed in relief and shook her head a bit to clear out a few of the light flashes that flashed in her eyes, but that was when she recalled that she and Jura were not the only ones who had been in the chamber when the explosion occurred.

"Dita!"

"Hi!"

Both Meia and Jura looked in the direction of the voice and gave sighs of relief as they spotted the red-haired apprentice pilot lying on her belly some distance away from them and waving her hand.

The bubbly red head was the youngest of the three at 16, she was also a little bit shorter then Meia, standing at 5'4. She was the definition of perky; her bright blue eyes always seemed to twinkle cutely and were always full of excitement. Her long mane of deep crimson red hair held a golden headpiece that had the resemblance of a tiara that matched perfectly with her diamond necklace around her neck. She wore a short black tank along with a pair of equally short well... shorts with a matching coat with over size sleeves.

Meia turned around and gave a breath of relief that the excitable young redhead was still alive and waving at her. Dita then lay back down on the floor and made several comments about the events that had just transpired a few moments ago, she spoke to herself in awe as she recalled the massive flash of light as well as her interactions with the alien.

Meia looked around her new surroundings, and while she said nothing, she was in awe at the sight of all the crystals everywhere, she then turned and spotted the man that Dita had been chasing, flat on the ground lying on his stomach and appeared to be unconscious yet alive, as his breathing could attest, and next to him was the strange robot that she had seen him carrying earlier. It was then that a door to her left opened up to reveal several women being led by a much older woman who looked to be in her late 80's if not older.

The captain of the pirates, her first officer and their chief engineer along with a well armed group of their security team stepped into the reactor room. They had been informed by their chief supply officer Gascogne Rheingau (or simply Gasco to the majority of the crew, though she hates this unofficial nickname with a passion) that the two ships could not be separated from the outside from the looks of things, so they decided to do the source of the problem.

Meia and her two subordinates greeted their fellow pirates as soon as they had arrived from their shuttle, as the squadron leader greeted the mother figure of the entire crew.

"I'm really sorry that you had to come all the way here Captain."

Magno waved her apology off gently as she smiled at her young but talented Dread Squadron leader. "It's quite all right Meia. I just decided to see this for myself." She began walking and looked at the room, which was flooded with the handiwork of the paeksis, the main power source of the turok battle ship, well, former turok battle ship."Unbelievable." She then caught the prone figure of Hibiki .slowly returning to the land of the living.

"This the man we encountered while looking for Dita Captain, when Jura and I found Dita, she was chasing him around screaming about making first contact"

"guess young Dita got a little too excited about meeting alien didn't you" the captain laughed a playful and loving way directed towards one of the pirate crews youngest members

As hibiki raises his head up to look at the old woman, he had a face that could only be described as something between weariness, soreness, nausea, as well as having the color leaving his face as he felt his life has ended.

"It's been a long time since I've seen men. Were their faces always that ugly looking?"

You ain't much to look at yourself"

With that Hibiki returned to the world of dreams, before Magno could think of what she was going to do to this brat(oh she was going to do something bad) she was taken out of her musings by one of her most trusted crew members

"Captain, you should come and have a look at this" Gascogne called out the aged pirate captain from behind several large crystals

Captain magno along with Meia being the only one of the rooms three original inhabitants that was not too busy enough from either worrying about any permanent scars on her body or going over again how amazing alien powers are, followed closely behind.

What they saw was Gascogne along with several of the ships security forces circled around a seemingly dead figure of a man. The captain knew the corpse belong to a man because there was no way a woman could ever be physically large has the person seemed to be. He was laying on his back but he looked to be around 6'2 if he was measure from the top of his head to his toes, towering over most if not all the women the aged captain has ever met in her long life. His frame was equally massive, his shoulders were broader then at least two of her crew members combined, his muscled arms looked to be as thick as a tree, infact his entire body seemed to be chiseled and hard to the touch, she wouldn't be surprised if he weighed in the ball park of about 300 pounds. His appearance was as intimidating if not more so then his size; his skin was pale white with the only exception being the largest tattoo the captain had ever seen, it was red, as red as blood that stood out more due to the color of his skin, that began just below his left eye and spiraled over the top of his head, which was shaved, down his neck and back, up his torso, and ending on his left shoulder. Compared to the other men who the pirates had interacted with during the course of the raid, this man could be considered half naked, wearing only what appeared to be a tattered skirt along with a pair of sandals.

His appearance, though she would never let it show in front of her crew, scared her in ways she didn't know were possible, but if the looks and mannerisms of the others surrounding the body were any indication she was not alone in these thoughts.

"Is he dead? "One of the security members said aloud not really directed at anyone in particular, just looking for conformation on what she's seeing.

"What was your first clue? the pool of blood he's sleeping in or the fact that you can see the floor threw his chest!" another security member tried to joke to try to both look tough in front her captain and to break the tension but her tone of voice showed how unnerved she was , this was the first time new recruits like her had ever seen a dead body, especially one like this.

"Damn it" magno whispered to herself "There were supposed to be no deaths "she suddenly snapped, her mood suddenly shifted to a somewhat remorseful attitude, for someone she never meet let alone a man, the sworne enemy of her home world, she felt she should take direct responsibility as captain of the crew for the death of this man. She bent down to get a better look at the man when she noticed something she hadn't before

"It can't be…." She whispered to herself as if she wasn't completely sure what she was looking at

"I NEED MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IMMEDIANTLY"

He was alive

Sorry couldn't think of a better way to end the chapter

I'm taking a few liberties with the vandread story line, changing a few things to try and make it better fit with kratos's involvement

Chapter 2 will be much longer and it will involve the first fight scene

This has got to be one of the dumbest crossover ideas ever, but what the hell it's interesting and it doesn't involve harry potter or naruto( what is up with those two they get crossed with everything)

Please review, flame if you want I might just deserve it


	2. Chapter 2

I own neither of the properties in this story

My first story so don't expect much

Hopefully I improved since chapter 1

**Mindscape**

Kratos was at the door of the temple of Athena. The small village was burning all around him but he didn't care, the only thing he saw were the faces of his family, faces frozen in fear and sadness at the last visions of life. His body covered in blood. The loyal soldiers of Sparta were slaughtering the villagers at the whim of Ares the god of war. He demanded every life of those who worshipped his sister Athena and Kratos was going to deliver them to him until he saw the sight that would change his life. The Oracle of the village stood in his path

"hear these words foolish mortal!" the old crone spoke, in a voice that kratos knew all too well "the titan saved you from death it death and with our help you changed your fate and this is how you repaid us" the sky erupted like fire, and the sky was ripped open as molten rock rained down scorching everything it touched

"For the glory of the titans" was the last thing kratos heard before he closed his eyes due to the intense pain he felt.

The temple was gone. It along with the entire village, it disappeared into blackness, leaving only the corpses of all those who stood in kratos way. The dead piled in front of him, an endless mountain that rivaled Mt. Olympus itself. Their skin, muscles, and organs melting from their bones creating a pool of melted flesh around the mountain of deformed human remains. The voices of those who died are clamoring for vengeance at first in several individual voices but soon their voices combined into one thunderous demonic yell. In a deafening roar and with each and every one of the skulls staring at kratos they spoke

"In the end chaos shall rule"

Kratos watched as the pile of bones themselves melted and combined with the blood and thick liquid meat. The liquid blood, skin, muscle, organs and bone rose like the oceans after he killed Poseidon and threatening to drown him. Kratos tried as he might to fight the un-wielding current but to n avail, the smell of the burnt and blended flesh wanted to make him gag but he k new if he opened his mouth he would drown in the horrid concoction. From the depths of the disgusting horrid ocean rose the once mighty Hydra. The beast before kratos was the very same monster he vanquished all those years ago, the flesh of the monster was peeling off showing parts of its skull along with the muscles and veins that were once hidden beneath its scales, the sharpen ship mast he used to impale the creature was still through the monsters jaw line sticking out at the beasts head with mold and barnacles growing on it, it's black eyes showed no emotion like a soulless puppet making moves and actions that aren't its own.

In a flash the undead sea serpent opened its mighty jaws and plunged its head down at the floating form of kratos, swallowing him whole, he did not go through the monsters throat like he thought he would, instead he found himself

Kratos stared at the body of Hermes unmoving. He took a few steps to inspect the corpse when the body sprang into the air. The world around them was a black void leaving kratos alone with his own kin as the legless god floated in mid air completely still as blood from his bloody stubs that he once called legs dripped and poured the crimson liquid.

"Stupid kratos. Poor little kratos. Poor stupid little brother"

Kratos didn't falter this time. In a scream of rage he sent his blades towards Hermes and cut off the messenger's god's head. The body dropped into the dark abyss but the head stayed in place unmoving from its original position with the same lifeless look staring at him

"You were the end of everything, Kratos, and the start of something greater"

The head faded into mist and disappeared from kratos sight, and what faded in with the same mist effect was his own farther, Zeus, several feet away from him sitting on his golden thrown at the top of Olympus

"Look at all of what you've done"

Zeus waves his hand and images of the people that were lost their lives during kratos; final assault upon the gods each image of how they met their end as well as the after shot of each corpse boor into kratos very soul.

So much chaos you have brought to this world, what do you think those you love would think of you if they saw you now

"The age of the gods are over, now is the age of…."

The floor crumbled under kratos feet, and he falls into nothingness, he feel for what seemed like hours until he heard a voice

"Why did you let her die?"

Kratos looked and saw Hephaestus, the smith god, his body covered in his own blood from the life ending wound he gave him in his own forge .As he fell he noticed the form of the dead god didn't seem to move and yet fallowed him as he continued down the void.

"My poor sweet Pandora, why did you kill her, weren't you a father once"

Kratos continued to fall, the last thing he heard was the whimpering of Hephaestus" my sweet little Pandora"

Kratos landed on his knees and palms when he hit the ground, he noticed he was in a court yard of some sort and he was not alone. There were

He was back at the temple. There was no haze clouding his sight. No hunger for blood clawing at his insides. Only his wife and daughter kneeling in prayer in front of the alter.

The sight of them, safe from the slaughter he could still hear outside the walls of the temple was enough to bring a tear to his eye. Finally after so many years he can be with them; he will get them away from this horrid place and finally put his past life behind him. With tears threatening to leave his watered eyes he took a step forward. That one step made them drop dead in front of him the same injuries that he caused all those years ago.

He collapsed then and there in front of the bodies, on his knees he screamed at the top of his lungs to the heavens, to anyone who could hear as tears flowed from his rage filled eyes. The screams of a man broken both mentally and physically

This truly was hell.

And he knew he deserved every minute of it

**Bridge of newly transformed pirate ship**

Captain Magno Vivian was over 100 years old, 108 to be precise but she'll say she was in her 80s if anyone asked; hey she looked good for someone her age, why not. She had seen a lot of things in her day and with her luck she'll see a lot more things before it's her time. But this ship along with the might just take the cake.

The marvel of a power source not only save them all from death by teleporting them across the universe but also combined her pirate vessel with the Ikazuchi, the colony ship she herself traveled on as a little girl over 100 years ago

She would be more impressed if they weren't transported to a planet with no technology nor any intelligent life or any means of escaping into space, combined the fact that they have no idea where in space they are and that no one even knows how to turn the engine on let alone polite the ship.

She had a lot on her mind from how to get home to how should she deal with the men who were onboard the ship, so far three have been found but she has a feeling there might be more, woman's intuition if you want to call it that

Two are already in the ships brig, the short load mouth brat dita was chasing around, and the taller and more mature one who according to several members of her crew was some sort of doctor as well as a great deal many other things she heard about him from some of her girls.

The one that was most troubling her though was one in the infirmary under heavy watch, his entire presence sent weird chills down her spine, like her mind was processes him as a predator and her and her crew its prey.

The more she thought about her problems the more they were shifted to the man. Looking by the state of his clothing there was no way he was supposed to be on that ship, she had doubts that he even is from Turok ( again woman's intuition), but so, then where did he come from and how did he get not only in the ship but the engine room without anyone noticing. His injuries are a concern to Magno as well, she had seen wounds less lethal looking kill people, how was it possible that this man was still breathing, not only that by the looks of his body there seemed to be a scar from a similar type of wound that was perfectly healed, so he survived this type of thing before? What kind of weapon could do that type of damage to a person?

The fact that it would be a miracle if he survives the night is not lost on her. She should make getting off this god forsaken planet her first priority, then after she'll worry about what may or may not happen with a man whose name she doesn't even know, she'll push her curious thoughts to the back of her mind for now, at least until they get off this planet first.

**Holding cells**

Hibiki was not in a very good mood, as he had awakened from a very strange and confusing dream and now found himself in another new cell. He was even made angrier as he was being interrogated by his cell mate a man by the name Duero McFile. Apparently the young man had to be with the rest of the Megele crew when it was discovered that the last life pods had already been launched into space.

"Hello Mr. third class citizen, I see you're awake. Pleasant dreams I hope"

Hibiki huffs and turns his back towards the young medic

"I know you, you're the one who made quite the mess at the ceremony, and just how did you manage to get on the ship and past security?"

"There's so many darn questions today…"

The conversation was stopped when the Tarak youth saw the robot he had carried with him begin to shake and move, and then the robot suddenly sprouted both a pair of small arms and legs, the static that once filled it's screen was replaced by two cartoonish large eyes, the robot then began to look around the cell and at its two inhabitants and scratched it's head with its fingers in confusion.

"Where am I? Who am I?"

Hibiki looked at the robot and was dumbfounded by the transformation.

"You've changed a bit since I saw you last, haven't you?"

"Huh?"

As the two ships continued to reformat themselves, the pirate crew continued to work hard to stop the changes to their vessel, but had no luck in going so. Before long, every circuit, cable relay, and mechanism of their cruiser and the old colony ship were flooded with crystals. As such was the predicament, the engines were offline along with most of the systems.

At the engineering section of the ship, Parfet the head of the ship maintenance engineers and her crew of engineers were trying everything in their power to determine the extent of the damage, but had no idea where to even start looking.

The fact that the entire ship is stuck on a deserted planet, and they don't even know how to even start the new engine let alone get it up and functional enough to get the ship off the planet's surface didn't help improve moral on the subject

In the depths of the former Ikazuchi, a panel opened up at the base of a statue also covered in crystal. Out crept the cowardly Bart, who had been in the base hiding since the explosion had occurred. As he looked around the crystal encased room he began to wonder what had happened to the ship, a shiver went down his spine as he realized that he was in BIG trouble. It was then that a piece of crystallized bulkhead broke free and fell down, nearly crushing the young cadet, he let out a scream and landed hard on his rear.

"Damn it! This always happens to me!"

It was then when he looked up and saw that he had been discovered. A certain blue-haired Dread Squadron leader was aiming her laser-ring at him and her thumb was only a millimeter away from the ring's firing stud.

"Ummm…Hi there"

**Hours later**…

Magno decided to question the prisoners and had ordered them to be taken to the interrogation chamber, which was now in the old section of the Ikazuchi. Hibiki and Duero were escorted under heavy guard. The restraints were better than the type the men used and from what Duelo noticed they appeared to be remote controlled. Due to his military training Duelo also could tell that by the way their captors moved that their combat skills were mediocre at best, they seemed to be too relaxed to be considered basic military, and Duelo began to think if these really were part of the majerian military force. Their weapons worried him though he had never seen plasma and laser weapons so compact before, they would be hard to dis-arm even with his training, it would be best to follow them while staying on his best behavior for now at least until he can more information and create a plan of escape. It was then that he noticed Hibiki moving his hands toward one of the women's butt. Before he could stop him, Hibiki had a perfect render of a hand print on the right side of his face, which left his cheek both swollen and red. As they were being led to the interrogation room they noticed that the whole ship had starting to change, the layout they were both used to had gone through a massive overhaul, everything from the lighting to the color scheme, to the overall layout of the halls and corridors have gone through a massive change it was nothing like he had ever seen before. What had happened since the women had taken over?

As soon as Hibiki and Duero entered the interrogation chamber, they both saw that another man was already in the proverbial hot seat'. Duelo recognized him instantly as Bart Garsus the heir of the Garsus food production corp, one of the largest corporations on turok and the main suppliers of dried food pills to the military as well as most civilians. From what Duelo could remember of him he was load, cowardly, and just loved to talk. Hibiki instantly recognized him as the guy who knocked him out when he was trying to escape during the initial ceremony. As the three of them sat down, another door opened and in walked their inquisitor, none other than the captain of the pirates.

Magno moved to a nearby chair which was in front of the three male prisoners as she gave each man a long studying look, she made her look longer and colder when she reached Hibiki, and this time she wasn't showing a cordial look, no doubt not forgetting that grandma remark when they first met.

"So these are the other men that were left on this ship, eh? They're nothing more than a bunch of kids, and wet behind the ears."

"Other men? You mean there are more here?"

"One more yes, he's currently in the infirmary being treated for a wound to the chest"

"Hey! Its interrogation time! I'll tell you everything!" The little robot began hopping to the place where Magno was sitting and began hopping around in circles around the old woman. It was very apparent who's side little machine was on.

The pirate captain looked down and gave a smirk.

"Well now, how nostalgic! A Navi robot and this one are still in good working order."

"I'm afraid that I don't follow." Duero asked in his inborn curiosity.

"This ship's been on our home planet for centuries." Bart remarked as he was afraid, but wanted to try and not show it.

"I was under that same impression myself." Hibiki merely said.

Magno snorted as she addressed them.

"I'll have you know that this ship actually was once part of a colonial fleet of ships from the planet Earth to colonize other worlds. This happened long before your fathers were even born. However, your cowardly grandfathers stole this segment of the ship and fled into the dead of the night."

The robot nodded as it continued with the explanations.

"They overhauled the section and added residential areas to the ship."

Magno nodded.

"That's correct. We're just taking repossession of it again. So technically speaking, this ship now is ours. Now the big question in my mind is what are we going to do with the three of you as well as your comrade?"

She began licking her lips as she said.

"Perhaps we should just roast you all over a slow fire. I always liked my men's innards medium rare."

That statement made Bart and Hibiki nearly piss their pants, but Duero remained calm. Duero had been trained to keep his focus as a medic

The tension was broken however when the same woman who captured Bart meia entered the room "captain the probes we sent have returned, we have visual"

Excellent, please put the information on the screen meia"

The table that separated the three young men and the pirate leader glowed for a split second then a hologram appeared above the table, the hologram looked to be of a planet of some sort, it looked to have a harsh and hostile environment. Mountains littered the surface, and the ground had an almost bronze color to it, obviously from a large amount of copper in the soil. The planet had three main land masses, which all of the rooms inhabitants noticed showed no signs of a civilization or any signs of intelligent life what so ever, separated between one large ocean filled with almost greenish water.

After a few seconds the hologram transformed showing a close up of one land mass in particular, this stretch of land seemed to be flat especially compared to the other two continents, though it did in fact have a large mountain range running though and around it, a large desert engulfed the entire southern part of the continent. The hologram changed again to show an enlarged view of one part of the mountain range down south and then another and another until finally the combined ships were in view, the ship seemed to be stuck on its side with the originally pirate section still engrossed in crystal lying in what looked to be a part of the large desert.

"Is this live?"

"Yes, this is direct video link from the probes we sent into space four hours ago"

"Well I guess were in more of a pickle then I originally thought, I supposed were going to be on this ship for an extended period of time, meia I wonder if it's safe to venture out of the ship"

"B.C has already gone through the calibrations, the air outside is safe for us to breath however she says she'll we will need to do further testing depending on the soil in case we might run out of food while on this planet"

"I see" Magno then looks to the group of three men "know you see what can of predicament we are in, so I ask you why I should even allow you to stay on this ship any longer then you already have"

"If you wanted us dead you would have done it already". Duelo spoke without the indication of any emotion in his voice, the teens to each of his sides were shocked and awed by his complete lack of concern their lives were in.

Magno smiled

"Oh really, what makes you think that?"

"I'm a doctor for one, and from what I've seen that young nurse is the only one on this ship with any medical training what so ever, that and between me and my fellow cadet your hoping one of us knows how to work this ship"

"You're a lot more observant then I first gave you credit for"

"I like to think I'm as smart as my captures would allow me to be"

"What ever do you mean by that?"

"If you were as vicious and evil as we grew up to believe you were, I find it hard to believe you wouldn't have killed us when you took are ship but instead you sent the other men away in escape pods while we still breath, especially since we're no use as bargaining chips a galaxy away from Turok, besides you don't seem like the type to kill without reason"

"I see we've come to an agreement then, without even discussing the matter"

"Wait agreement what agreement?" Bart said, no longer following the conversation between the elder woman and his graduating class's top cadet

"We're joining forces with the women to get off this planet and getting home duelo said as if it were the easiest thing in the world"

"WHAT! You can't be serious, they'll kill us the first chance they get" hibiki screamed out suddenly, no doubt not trusting the females motives and still showing prejudice towards his captives.

"Again if they wanted us dead why bother bringing us here, they could have killed you and I in the holding cells" Duelo said, his reasoning somewhat calm Bart down, if only a little bit, but Hibiki was stubborn always has been and always will be. He was still iffy on whether he could trust the two men in the room, no way would he willingly alien himself with women.

"Well since that's settled I would like to ask you something captain"

"What is it?"

"The other man you mentioned that was in the infirmary, I would like to see him"

**Ship infirmary **

"Paiway! Let us out! It's freezing in here!" Barnette continued to shout as she pounded on the glass as she and several other girls were being doused in freezing cold water in the decontamination chambers. The only reason for this treatment is that these particular women including Barnette were the ones Duelo had treated for injuries only a few hours ago. They were in their undergarments and were facing the soon to become possibility that they would be in danger of catching pneumonia.

However, the young apprentice nurse didn't listen to her comrades, as she sat on her desk and shook her head. "Not until all the male germs are gone." She then directed her attention at her trusty diary. "Even in times of crisis, super cute and talented teen idol Paiway does not lose her cool…"

Paiway what exactly are you doing here?"

"Oh captain it's you… CAPTAIN BEHIND YOU!"

"Do not worry child there is no danger with these three" the captain said as she lead the men to one bed in particular, the armed guards saluted to their captain as they stepped back their weapons still aimed at the downed man.

The captains words had not entirely calmed the young nurse down but it was enough to get her to stop fidgeting and yelling. She slowly walked towards the bed the four of them were standing at

"He hasn't shown any signs of waking up, the only thing I could so was sterilize and wrap the wound and it took four of us to just lift him long enough to wrap his lower chest once"piaway said uneasiness somewhat coming off her voice, but she seemed to be doing her best to look professional in front of the captain, so she would bring out her puppet later when the matter isn't as serious.

"So do know this man" magno asked the young men in front of her

"No, I've never seen this man before in my life, he doesn't look like any citizen I've ever seen what about you Bart"

"Nop and I knew the names of everyone on that ship" Bart said shrugging his shoulders, who ever this guy is he's giving off a whole lot of bad mojo and it's making him feel like he was going to collapse.

Hibiki stood there unable to move, his heart seemed to beat faster than it's ever had before, he's seen this an before he just doesn't know where, he can't recall what kind of person this man is, all he knows is that the man's presence is making Hibiki nervous, scared , and ….anxious?.

"His vitals seem a bit low; exactly what was the extent of his injuries?"

"When we first saw him in the engine room, he was lying in a pool of his own blood, he has several lacerations on his body but the most troubling was a gaping whole near the center of his chest" magno answered the medics question, still curious on his theory for the man longevity

Duelo kept quit but his mind was racing a 100 miles a minute,"Hmm _such a wound combined with a loss of so much blood would surely would have killed this man, but how is he still alive?"_

Suddenly the alarm blasted on as red lights nearly blinded those who weren't prepare, a voice on the load speaker the tone of her voice told everyone listening how serious the situation was "this is an emergency, this is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill , will all available dread pilots please report to your stations"

The captain slightly taped the ear piece on her left ear and spoke in a calm tone of voice "B.C what's going on"

Captain the scanners sense a life form heading for us fast"

"I'm in the infirmary, Get me visual"

On what was once a blank wall, a large screen appeared out of nowhere, the video screen gave off an appearance of a large window screen, what the captain didn't know was that this live visual was being shown all throughout the ship as every crew members from the dread pilots to the maintenance crew to the members of the register. What occupants of the room as well as all the members of the ship could see was what seemed to be a colossal sand storm but the captain saw something in the middle of the storm and made her thoughts clear" get me a colder shot!"The camera increased its scope as its view landed on the creature detected by the ships thermal scanners.

The only word that could correctly describe the creature would be massive, it looked to be about 350 feet tall and nearly four times that in length not counting the long tri-fork tail long and thick enough to fully wrap around the two ships. It walked on all four of its long double jointed limbs. The creature's posture looked to be similar to a gorilla, its back being slightly hunched down while its head looked straight ahead. Its arms were much longer than the other two bottom limbs, ending in a six fingered hand which could bend backwards to allow the creature to balance and walk on its fingers on the hot desert sand. The pair of double-jointed, squat legs looked to be equally as powerful, as they are enough to support the creatures mass easily, and yet still allow it to move relatively quickly and have a degree of explosive agility for an organism of its size. Each of its feet and hands looked to be about 40 feet in length and 35 feet in width, enough to completely close its hands around one of the pirates dread ships.

Its head has sharp, bony features and two eyes with black pupils large enough to almost obscure their white of its eyes from view. Its face resembles that of a piranha or an angler fish. There are a set of sack like organs on both sides of its head behind its eyes, which inflate and recede back into the head these seem to be its "ears" much like those of a frog.

Its skin looks thick almost like a thick piece of lether, with a brownish huh to it, due to the terrain it lived in. there were boney spikes and plates all over its body creating makeshift body armor, the largest being on its back acting almost like a tortoise shell and on its arms and legs giving the beast an armored tank like appearance.

To the pirate crew as well as their prisoners, it was the most fritening thing any of them had ever seen in their lives, and it looked hungry.

"_The dreads are all designed for space combat, and we don't even know how to operate the ships defenses_" the captain thought to herself, she truly was at a loss for words, it seemed after all the close calls she and the crew she always saw as the daughters she never had were going to meet their makers because of some monster looking for its next meal

"_There is no hope"_

**Mind scape**

Kratos laid there on his hands and knees for what felt like a life time, too tired to do move even a single muscle, contempt to stay there until he lost what was left of his sanity through the fires and screams

"Kratos"

A voice echoed so softly It could be said it was never said, but kratos knew that voice, he knew it all too well, it was a voice that he had longed to here spoken live for years, the same voice that had haunted his darkest nightmares, and the same voice that allowed that gave him the strength to push forward during his toughest battles

Kratos" the voice spoke again this time loader then before giving kratos enough reason to lift his head towards where the voice was coming from, what he saw mad e tears freely leave his eyes.

It was a beautiful woman who looked to be in her early 30's, she was tall and regal , like most women from her home land she was muscular yet still held soft and delicate curves that would launch 1000 ships as Helen once did. she had long flowing brown hair that was held by a piece of blue cloth, the same color and fabric that the cloth she wore around her body, around her neck shown a magnificent blue sapphire necklace, he once gave her many years ago, but not even that shown more beautifully to kratos then her deep blue eyes that always seemed to look through kratos hard persona and saw what was underneath.

The first person to have ever loved him, his soul mate, his wife "Lysandra" he uttered, suddenly his body was filled with energy and he exploded into a mad sprint to get to her. Never before, either during his time as Spartan general to his war against the gods had kratos moved so fast, he bolted in front of her and slid to his knees and wrapped his arms around the women's stomach as if he were afraid she was just an illusion and would fade away

She stroked his shoulders in a caring and soothing way, how he missed the feel of her flesh, and how he longed for the days when they used to stay up all night and look at the scats together, they were just a bunch kids back then and she was the first he ever felt connected with since his brother was taken from him.

Tears flowed freely out of the former god of war eyes, as his wife lightly stroked his massive shoulders and arms slightly humming a soft tune of a song she once sung to their daughter.

As kratos shed the last of the tears he had saved up his entire life, he began to stand to his feet, still holding on to dear life to his wife still worrying she would leave him again.

"I'm sorry,oh I'm so sorry"

"Shh I know kratos; you don't have to say it"

"I am so sorry, my love, can you ever forgive me for all I've done?"

"I can never stay mad at you" she stands on her toes to plant a kiss on her slouched husbands forehead, this action sooths kratos more then she could ever imagine

"Kratos, you must wake up"

"But I'm dead, I don…"

"No" she takes his hand and places it against her face " you are only a sleep, and now is the time to wake up"

"I don't want to, I want to stay here I.."

"You must do this kratos, one last trial and we can be together "

"But why, haven't I done enough"

"I do not fully understand myself but, this is your destiny, what you were born to do. Do this one thing and you, me, and Calliope can be together " she kisses his hand showing him that she longs for him just as much as he longs to be with her, and the fact that she is sending him away no matter if temporary is tearing her up in-side

"I'll do it"

She stepped away from him, he stops himself from grabbing her and stopping her from leaving him, but he knows she may be right, one more trial and finally they can be together but what trial must be done

"Know this my love, you may not fully understand what is happening when you awake, just know you must make sure all is returned safely to their home"

From behind her, his daughter stood carrying a pair of blades, he ran to his daughter and scooped her into a large hug, one in which she joyfully excepted and returned, when he put her down is when he really noticed the weapons, they were twin swords that attached to chains that would be placed around his arms, similar to those he wielded threw out his entire journey given to him by his two half siblings Ares and Athena. The pair his child help were not as angler or demonic looking as the blades he was given previously, the handles seemed to have words inscribed into them, but he couldn't read them, they seemed to be some sort of dead language. The handle tips seemed to be that of an eagles head. The blades themselves seemed to have an image of a phoenix engrossed in a flame of some sort as the alpha and omega symbols seem to be on the top and bottom of the blades respectively.

"These blades will help you on your journey, when ever these are near know that Calliope and I will be with you always" with that he slowly walk toward his family, confident he would not fail and he would see them once again. His young child held on to his leg sad knowing he must leave her again as he stroked and played with her hair, as Lysandra wrapped her arms around his neck and captured his lips in a kiss, it was long and full of passion and unknown to kratos fully healed his wound without even leaving a scar.

Kratos kept his eyes closed, savoring the feeling of being around the two most important women in his life, he was drowning in this feeling until he could no longer feel the silkiness of his daughter's hair nor the softness of his wife's lips

He opened his eyes to see only light, and was going to make someone pay dearly for waking him.

**Ship Infirmary**

His eyes were opened for the first time in kratos didn't even know how long, but he knew only a few things, he was laying down on some type of bed, the hole in his torso is gone, his new blades were on his back, and that both his eyes and ears were being bombarded with loud beeping and flashing lights.

He threw the sheet off of his body and stood up, noticing first the strange surroundings he was currently in, the walls weren't made of any lumber or type of stone he'd ever seen before, they seemed to cold and smooth…metal purhapse? The light throughout the room seemed to be unnatural, what magic could allow this sort of thing and those sounds, could drive men mad, he heard something that sounded human come from his right so he turned and noticed a young girl in one of the strangest outfits he had ever seen in his long life, her black hair parted into two directions and she had the sheet he just threw off himself on her, covering most of her body except her head and the front of her body

Kratos then noticed that the other inhabitants of the room were looking at him with a mixture of awe, terror, and suspicion looks he has gotten used since his years as the ghost of Sparta. He knew automatically that magno was in-fact the leader of the group despite her old age he felt something from her he didn't feel from the others so he put his attention onto her.

"What place is this, woman" kratos spoke down to the aged pirate both literally and figural

Well then, ignoring the attitude" she paused and looked up to give the Spartan a looked filled with equal amount of annoyance and regret "this was my ship once a while ago, but now it seems to be all of our coffin"

"What do you mean?"

"Look for yourself"

She moved her body to let the large man get a view of the architect of their destruction; she looked at his face to see a hint of any emotion. There was no fear in his eyes, nor was there any regret he felt in his life, he looked as if he was almost contemplating his next move

"Tell me what's the fastest way to get off this monstrosity you call a ship" Kratos asked after a few seconds of wordlessness

"Why do you want to know, that thing will devour you if you try and escape"

"Who says I'm escaping"

"You're going to fight that thing"

"No, I'm going to kill it"

What1? You wouldn't stand a chance, you'll die quicker…

Kratos unsheathed the blade from his back and held it to the captain's head, Meia along with the security raised their laser rings and aimed it at his head to kill him quickly before their captain could be harmed

"I wasn't asking you, now tell me"

Magno had met many people in her life, never before had she felt so much fear for one single human being, just by looking in his eyes she know he has killed before, more times than even he would like to admit, these were the eyes of a person you wouldn't want to fuck with

"Meia take him to the dread launching shuttle"

"But captain, dreads are inaffective here what will.."

"Relax I have a feeling that our guest will think of something once he gets there"

Both meia and kratos lowered their respective weapons, and walked out of the room, first a very cautious Meia followed by kratos. As the door closed Mango let out a hard breath one she didn't even knew she was holding in.

For some odd reason she felt as if they could in fact get out of this situation alive after all, she saw something else in the man's eyes, something that made her knew she could trust this man, she saw almost the reasons he wanted to save them for, she saw hope.

**Dread Hanger**

This is where we store our dreads, unfortunately I don't know how you can be of much use against that thing since you don't look like you even know what a dread is let alone us it

She turns her head and notices that the man in front of her hasn't heard a thing she said, he was either no busy staring up towards the ceiling

It that the door to the outside up there

Yes, it's usually open when our dreads are catapulted out into battle

Catapult

Meia loudly sighs "I don't have time for this, here I am playing 20 questions with a barbaric man while we're all waiting here to di…"

"Open the door and launch me out"

"Wh-Wha..Are you out of your mind"

"JUST DO IT"

The force of his growl like demand was enough to take Meia back, the men she and her fellow pirates had battled were just cadets fresh from the academy, were the real Turok army just like him, she shudders at the thought.

She did however do as she was told, she put in the emergency code to open the bay doors manually, usually the doors would be opened through the bridge as the dread would always be launched into space the doors are never allowed to open when there are life forms detected out of a dread, but as the squad leader she was given such codes for emergencies only.

The alarms blasted as a final warning, telling all those who valued their lives to vacate the premises. As the doors slid open the hot sun's rays shone brightly down the dimly lighted hanger, the dry heat reminded kratos of his journey to gain Pandora's Box from the temple on top of his grand farther, kronos, back.

He positioned himself in the middle of the launch base as the catapult the dreads uses as a jumping off point was in position and ready to fire.

Kratos was shot out of the hanger like a bat out of hell; his body pushed forward there the momentum of the catapult towards the beast as it was moving closer and closer towards the ship. He grabbed a blade with each hand and prepared his attack, the force of the dread catapult arched his body as he was pushed forward, this allowed the Spartan to be at eye level with the beast, with his blades ready to attack he moved the blade in his left hand forward with its point directly in the path of the creatures eye. With a scream his body and his blade collided with the eye socket of the great beast. The animal stopped dead in its track and howled in pain as the entire length of the sword has well as his fist was imbedded deep inside the creatures black. The beast rocked its head back in forth in an incontrollable manic manner, overcome by the massive pain his body was racked with.

With his free hand and blade he drove his weapon repeatedly into the eye of the beast as he used the other hand to keep himself in place. The violent shacks of the creature paid off as kratos was violently thrown off of the creatures face and onto the desert sands below. Kratos rolls into the fall and stops safely on the ground in a crouch position both blades out and ready for round 2.

Blinded in one eye, the beast stepped closer to what it assumed would be it next meal, with the Spartan in its sights the monster chose to attack. The monster took a step forward and raised his massive hand and threw what could only be described as the most awkward punch kratos had ever seen, however the size and apparent power of the beast could be lethal to the reawaken Spartan, as the arm straightened to its full length and as the fist traveled closer to the ground towards him, the ancient warrior decided his next move, as the colossal fist descended upon him, he noticed that the beasts whole body moved towards him as the force from the punch seemed to be dragging the beast along for the ride.

He rolled away from his position as the fist collided with nothing bust sand, kratos swung one of his chain blade towards the scaly fist, the blade struck and was embedded into the knuckle of the enclosed hand.

As the beast raised his hand to see its supposed handy work, the Spartan was picking his spots and waiting for the moment to strike. With both blades still in the flesh of the beast, the Spartan started to run the length of the monsters arm, the twin blades slicing skin and muscle while scraping across the monsters skeleton, blood exploding onto kratos whenever he struck a vein. When he got to the creatures neck, he swung one blade into the ear sack on the side of the animals head, thick blackish brown ooze dripped out of the open would he then jumped up swing in other blade into the opposite sack. He then plummeted down dragging the beast head with him. With one of its arms out of commission as well as being half blinded and deaf the creature didn't have either the sense to brace for impact or the ability to hold its body up to stop the Spartan.

The beast, now laying on its stomach and having its face presented to him, kratos sensed the end was near for his would be killer. Deciding to end it somewhat merciful he choose to simply jump atop the creature head, when he was in perfect position he raised both of his blades above his head, and drove them into the brain of the beast killing him instantly.

Standing above the corpse of the fallen monstrosity looking straight ahead towards the strange ship as well as his apparent audience, kratos thought about what his final journey will bring him and just how long it will take him to reach his ultimate goal.

That's it.

Leave a review. Tell me what you like what you don't like

Chapters are going to be this long for now on, so you can view this as either a promise or a warning depending on your point of view

P.S should I add Romance and pair some of the characters with each other?

Leave your opinion in the reviews


	3. Chapter 3

I own neither properties involved with this story

Somewhere out in the vast reaches of the galaxy, a group of female pirates from Mejale and their male captives were drifting aimlessly in the star-studded void. The pirate vessel had now been completely engulfed by the Ikazuchi's Paeksis Reactor and now the two vessels became one whole ship. Inside the newly made and combined vessel, particularly inside the conference room, the captain of the pirates, her first officer, and their Dread squadron leader were in deep discussion.

Magno nodded as she gazed at the holographic images on the screen.

"Continue with your report, BC."

The first officer nodded as she began to explain the current situation to her commanding officer along with the latest reports they have gathered which were being displayed.

"Yes, Captain. The entire ship has now been completely swallowed up by the crystals. The bridge, residential, and engineering sections have now been completely reformatted and all systems have been infused with Paeksis crystals, the two ships have know combined into one singular vessel, unfortunate as you have noticed some of the ships function have yet to reboot, Fortunately the Dread launching Platforms were not affected and at this stage we are implanting the new data into the systems. It now seems that the Paeksis Reactor has reached its peak. The bridge has stopped sliding from the original configuration to be overlooking the ship's Bio Park."

The old woman smirked little at this, while she looked up at the bridges main screen over head to look at the ships new helmsman floating in what seemed to look like thin air it was funny that the one thing this particular man brought to the table inadvertently was driving the entire crew nuts. The load mouth teen in questioned looked somewhat unconvertible being watched by all the people on the bridge. Bart himself was just floating in nothingness trying not to destroy the ship and kill everyone while thinking about and questioning the reason why he volunteered his expertise in navigation for his lack of a better term, kidnappers, but of course the expertise he told the captain he held really in fact meant he had no knowledge what so ever in any shape or form imaginable. But she really didn't need to know all that did she?

Flash back

A helmsman?"

"How did I get caught up in this" Hibiki said

"Warning! Danger! This guy is trying to pull something!" The Navi-bot said in alarm

Hibiki was then elbowed in his side by Bart as almost a silent and subtle way for the older teen to tell the third class citizen to "shut the hell up" for lack of a better term"

If he would have said that a few days ago there would have been no way magno would have believed anything that came out of this young man's mouth, but after what she just saw out there, shocked her to her very core. The idea that a single man armed with nothing more than a pair of short swords was capable of not only killing a beast of that size but to completely dominate it the way that man did…honestly Captain Mango Vivian has become allot more willing to disband her dis-belief.

"All right I guess I've seen crazier things happen today" those things being the mystery man- Kratos, physically man handling a monster hundreds of times his size without breaking a sweet and only after a few minutes from waking up from a coma

The pirate looked at the two men in front of her, the third Turok citizen was in the infirmary going through medical books and charts like a child in a candy store, and over all getting a feel for the new tools he would be using the as the head doctor of her ship. He has so far received many visits from the crew members who were injured from the last battle, all of them either minor wounds that no would visit a doctor for or some even weren't injured at all. "someone's popular" she thought almost laughing as she had heard some of the girls talk about the new doctor

Kratos on the other hand, she honestly didn't know where on the ship he went, he seemed to be a person who enjoyed his space, and she or any of her crew was up to the challenge of making him feel uncomfortable, not after what they've seen him just do.

You should of told me about your expertise a while ago would have saved the mentinance crew allot of time and trouble"

"Well when we first met we weren't on the best of terms know were we?"He spoke with such confidence that he even began to fool himself

"I suppose not, know why don't you show us how it's down and get us off this planet before more of those things show up" magno said humoring him, urging him forward

Bart turned away from the captains chair and began walking towards the extended platform overlooking the bio park, with each step he took the more nervous he got, when the platform ended he stood completely still, not knowing what to do his mind was racing in trying to come up with a plan

Suddenly Bart's entire body was engulfed in a bright blue light that almost blinded the women and hibiki. As the light dispersed any trace of Bart was long gone, before anyone could voice their surprise or concerns, a giant holographic screen on the ships front windows turned on and showed a very naked Bart.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED"

Oh my, secret weapon indeed" the captain blinked and smiled up at the would be navigator" you seem surprised for someone so well versed in this Technology"

"I j-just lost my footing is all" his once over whelming confidence left him, as his excuse feel on deaf ears.

"Well go on young man"

Bart cleared his throat and began to move his arms up and down hoping for something to happen, fortunately for Bart's pride, as his Moved up and down the sound of the main engine system roared as parfets face appeared on a screen in front of mongo face.

The engines just went on all of a sudden, what you guys do up there?

You mind answering the lady young man

W-well itsaaaa errrr you know hard to explain without having prier knowledge and stuff, you know how it is"

So can you get this ship off this god forsaken rock" Bart began to open his mouth to answer her bet was cut off by the pony tailed engineer" the ship has a mechanism where it can raise itself if it is forced to crash land on land and allows it to launch itself into space while on a planet's surface but…"

But what?

"The ship is at such an awkward angle that the thruster wouldn't be able to ride itself, we could try but we don't know how much damage the ship will take if we skid across the mountains full force if we fail"

"So what you're saying is we're literally stuck between a rock and a hard place"

Hibiki sighed and put both hands behind his head "Really not funny lady"

So what needs to be done?

The deep monotone voice boomed and echoed into the ears of the bridges inhabitants as they turned towards the sliding doors to the far left side of the captain's chair.

What stood there was the Spartan warrior kratos himself staring un-wielding at each and every inhabitant of the bridge, not with malice or anger but with general curiosity and with almost a neutral look on his face. His body language told them that he was defiantly not comfortable in doing this; anyone who looked at him could tell he rarely ever put himself out in front of a group and generally to help them

The door closed behind him as he began to walk closer towards the captain's position. With each step he took every person eyes seemed to have been fallowing every step. The fear and uncertainty was still their but it was hidden under the intimidation each of them felt for this monster of a man, as well as a sense of awe each person felt for this man.

Hibiki usually the type that would never bow towards another due to his own pride, took a step away from the Spartan when he felt himself to close for comfort as the warrior stopped in front of the captain, the age pirate herself looked down at the pale man in front of her with as much respect in both her eyes as well as her voice that she could muster

Hello young man, I hope your slight rest was satisfactory

My well being is not the most important of matters now" the Spartan stopped as he raised his massive arms and placed them across his broad chest as he continued to speck" I ask again, what needs to be done to continue on our journey"

The captain smiled, she knew this man's type, straight to business, he was un waving and did what he felt had to be done to achieve his goals, she liked that in a person.

"Well you see, it seems that this vessel is stuck against these mountains, and this position is stopping us from leaving and continuing on home"

"So all you need is to lift this ship off its side" Mogno nodded not quite sure how to answer or even where these questions are coming from, these thoughts were taken away from her as the Spartan in front of her turned and began to walk back towards the door. The last thing any of them heard from the man was a simple "simple enough" he said most likely an afterthought to himself as he walked through the sliding doors to do god knows what.

An hour had passed uneventful for the captain, she was currently engrossed in the middle of a meeting between her, her second in command B.C., her dread commander Meia, the chief mechanic Parfet as well as the leader of the ships register Goscogne inside the conference room.

They were going through their options and deciding their next move regarding leaving this planet, it seemed their best option would be to use the male vanguards as they were designed to be used in most if not all terrains unlike the dreads used by the women.

They seemed to be in full agreement on their next form of action, when all of a sudden the sirens blared once again. Thinking that a second beast had found them from the smell the corpse the first creature was giving off, she began to curse her luck while hoping that lightning could strike twice with kratos against this supposedly new monster.

She as well as every other member of the ship felt a sudden and powerful jerk towards the right side of the ship, worrying that this creature had already advance upon the ship she screamed for visual on the source of the sudden movement.

What she saw will forever engrave in her mind that kratos was beyond anything she thought was possible for a human to achieve. She was welcomed by the sight of kratos, whose body was being dwarfed by whatever external part of the ship he was currently near, with arms fully extended up wards with the entire weight of the ship directed upon him. With a low growl his arms began to lower towards his shoulder, his massive biceps flexing due the strain they were feeling. With a yell he exploded with pure un filtered power as the force of his push was enough to lift the entire half of the ship off the rocky and jagged mountains. The force was so great had it not been for Bart deploying the ships fail safe and evening itself out just in the nick of time( by accident of course) the ship would have collapsed upon its opposite side in the sand of the un forgiving desert,

End Flash Back

"And our current location?"

The captain asked as she continued to fan herself with a small hand-held fan to cool down. The ship's environmental control systems were among the systems still inactive and that made the current temperature to be at least 100 degrees.

The holographic image changed to that of a star chart as BC continued her report.

"It seems that the worst case senerio is correct, the vacuum that was created through a combination of the missile launched by the men and the core reactor of this old colony ship had transported us to a completely different galaxy from our own. It will take 270 days at the very least for us to return to our home system."

The aged woman gave a sigh as she looked in slight disappointment.

"What did we ever do to deserve being flung across space?" She then turned to address Meia. "And do you have to report Meia?"

The young blue-haired female nodded as she took her turn.

"The three Dreads that were swallowed up and transformed by the Paeksis, including mine, are no longer able to fit into the regular Dread platforms. We've modified the cargo bay area on the men's side of the ship and are now storing them there. Luckily the other dreads are now 100% functional and are now ready to launch if we were to encounter any new hostiles"

Flash Back

CAPTAIN! We're being attacked by some unknown enemies that appeared out of nowhere!" Parfet declared as soon as she also got the data from her crewmates at the bridge.

"Can you move the ship young man?

"The engines just died out on me, and these shields are barely repelling the attacks!"

"The main Dread platforms are still offline! We can't deploy any of the Dreads!" Gascogne reported to Magno.

The only good news during this little situation came from Meia as she; Jura and Dita ran towards toward their respective Dreads, which were still housed at the Paeksis Reactor Room. However, as soon as they arrived, they stopped and gasped at the sights awaiting them.

Within the huge room were their Dreads, but the ships somehow took new configurations after being engulfed by the power of the Paeksis.

"Are these… our Dreads?" Jura asked as she looked at their respective ships.

"Wow!" Dita gasped, as she looked awed at the sight.

Meia also stopped, but then didn't hesitate to board her Dread, she reached it and climbed aboard, the other Dread pilots also did the same and entered their ships, and as soon as they were onboard they checked the systems.

Inside her Dread, Meia did quick but through system check and nodded with relief.

"Looks like the systems haven't changed much. How about the two of you?"

"I think mine can fly." Jura reported through her comlink.

"They must have been powered up!" Dita responded with excitement ruling her voice.

"This is so exciting!"

"Don't bite more than you can chew!" Meia warned her team as her fighter lifted off and flew to the direction of the hanger; following her were her wing mates. They were soon in the void of space and were immediately bombarded by the attacks of their still unknown enemy.

The new force that was their foes were not like any model the pilots had never seen before. Small fighter ships shaped like odd-shaped octopus looking vessel that began letting loose a powerful volley after volley of laser and cannon fire at the fused ship and the three Dreads trying to defend it from them... Some distance behind the fighters was their mother ship; the alien vessel was shaped like a massive seed. Every once in a while during certain intervals the mother ship's maw would open releasing two massive cubes, which would immediately break apart into new fighters. It seemed that for every fighter the Dreads would destroy, then three to four more would take the place of those destroyed by the Dreads. It wasn't long before the three pirates found themselves badly outnumbered.

"Excuse me please don't shoot at us! We're a very peaceful race!"

Dita cried out as she managed to make her craft dodge the incoming stream of weapons fire from her pursuers.

"Dita! These are our enemies!" Jura scolded through the comlink, and then began to wonder just how did Dita's skills had improved so dramatically. She had managed to do a complex evasion pattern despite her still present lack of experience with her Dread.

Meia noted that her fighter's response time was better than before as she managed to dodge the barrage of fire from more of the alien fighters as she downed one of them. "The controls have been altered somewhat." She then winced as her ship rocked as it took a hit off to the stern. "Who or what are these things? Are these things really aliens?"

"One thing's for sure though. They're definitely not men." Jura assured as she got into contact with Meia.

"No kidding! They're really BAD aliens!"

Dita shouted with anger as she continued to dodge the incoming fire as she also got into contact with Meia.

Magno winced as the ship took several more direct hits from their new opponents. Since they could not activate the engines they then couldn't move, they were also unable to regroup with the Dreads and were now nothing more than a sitting duck.

Bart gasped, as he more explosions riddled the ship as he was forced to learn the basic of the ships navigation by simple cause and effect. By that he means just doing random movements and hopped for the best

It was at that time that the once thought dead engines roared to life as Bart used the oldest trick in the book, he ran like hell.

However the enemy had no intention of letting them escape so easily, as the mother ship pursued them while unleashing more fighters.

At the Vanguard hanger…

"Really? So why are you here?"

Hibiki moaned sadly, he really didn't want to get into this not in front of anyone, especially not in front of a woman. He was being led by the ships commander, B.C, towards where apparently the vanguards were, where "his" vanguard was. That annoying bastard Bart told the captain he was an experienced pilot despite his unassuming appearance.

It wasn't until they were a few feet away from the entrance to the paksis chamber, when he blurted out the truth. He was not a pilot, he was a simple mechanic looking to make a name for himself.

"It was because of a stupid bet I made with my big mouth, I bet that I could steal on the Vanguards that was marked by the others to prove that I could, I wanted to back out, but they wouldn't stop, and before I knew it I …I bet I would not only steal the whole Vanguard with the marked part…but bring it back to Tarak as well! I wanted to see if there was more to life than just doing manual labor day in a day out…and not being able to see just what else was out there in the world…I wanted to do something for my benefit and not for another mans, now I …I don't know what to do."

He hated feeling pity for himself and he hated even more when others felt pity for him, he felt low the lowest he had felt in a long while, he just wanted to curl up somewhere and die.

"While you sit there feeling bad for yourself, others are risking their lives in battle" a voice boomed through the darkness of the corridor, the echoes sending shivers down hibikis spine. The pale man slowly stepped out of the shadows into the twos view

"How does it feel to know that you can't even stand up when your life depends on it, your pathetic" he shook his head in an almost disappointed manner, ashamed to be anywhere near the boy.

I'm not pathetic" hibiki said, sounding almost as if he were convincing himself more than the Spartan

"Then prove me wrong, get out there and fight with every last fiber of your being, death is the highest honor a man can achieve in his life, it means that your values transcends your very life. For a true warrior death is only the beginning"

"The fact is this is your life, you are the only person who can decide how you want to live your life. It's your choice to make and no one else's."

He turned and walked back into the shadows, he heavy foots steps echoed in hibikis mind as he searched his very soul for the answer, an answer to a question he has asked himself for as long as he could remember.

Out in space 

The three Dreads were slowly being outnumbered and outgunned by the sheer numbers of the alien fighters that now numbered at least twelve dozen and more were still coming. And the ship was taking a severe beating. In the medical bay, Duero had discovered that all the instruments were underpowered so they stated that since the medical facilities and tools were offline then they'll have to do things HIS way. That statement made the young nurse assisting him VERY nervous to say the least.

The ship meanwhile was still running for its life, but the alien mother ship was steadily closing in.

Paeksis room…

Hibiki was looking through the rows of his planets most prized weapons, as he looked around for the vanguard he had planned on stealing. Hibiki then found his partner.

"Wow partner you sure have changed. Looks like I'll have to change to keep up with you

With that Hibiki got into his vanguard then quickly launched out into the heated battle surrounding the ship

"Reinforcements? Who is it?" Meia asked as she and her wing mates were in desperate need of help as the numbers of the alien fighters became too much for the three of them to handle without any support.

"Who?" Meia asked curiously.

"I don't care who she is, she'd better hurry!" Jura whined a bit as she dodged some more attacks from the strange fighters.

A new voice broke in. "Who said anything about your back-up being female?" said hibiki with a cocky smirk almost plastered onto his face

Just then an unknown object burst forth from the bottom of the pirate vessel as it got closer to them the three dread pilots realized it was one of the men's mech suits, one that was heavily modifies similar to their individual dreads...

"IT'S MR. ALIEN!" Dita cried out with joy as she spotted the vanguards

"He's our reinforcements!"

Observation deck

Kratos stared into the vacuum of space watching the space battle unfold before his eyes, he was never the type to stay out of a fight especially not one that seemed to be taking place so close. But he knew this was not his fight, this was the little ones. He would just have to sit back and watch it unfold

He told himself that the kid needed this more than himself, he needed this boosted in confidence and he knew that nothing quite raised ones inner stock like a good battle.

He didn't know why he was doing the things he was doing. Usually he would have killed that kid as soon as he opened his big mouth, crushed his would be adveseries and would have had his way with half the crew by now. But that was then and this was now, since the murder of his farther, he lost the need to drown himself with women, all he wanted was his family.

Which brings up another reason for kratos taking such an interest in this hibiki kid, every time he looks into this boys eyes the only thing kratos can see his the brother he lost so long ago, the brother he failed to protect, the weakling that was left to die by Sparta, his baby brother he never forgave himself for letting die.

He was not failing a second time; he would never fail again.

Out in space, with the trio of Dreads…

Dita's eyes were starry as she gazed at the vanguards. "YAY TO MR. ALIEN!" She said as she cheered.

Hibiki managed to finally strike down the last pair of alien fighters that were before him and he then decided to take out the main unit by himself, hoping to finally prove that he had what it took be stronger and better than he was now. With that in mind, he launched his Vanguard straight at the mother ship. The Tarak male and the other Megele pilots had been able to hold their own, but they were still trying to find a way to end the threat of the aliens, and it seemed that Hibiki decided to take things into his own hands.

"Dita! What are you doing?"

Meia cried out as the bubbly redhead suddenly directed her Dread to follow Hibiki's reckless charge to finish of the enemy by himself, and the redhead decided to follow him in the attack.

"Don't worry Leader! Mr. Alien here can do it! I know he can!"

"Come on!"

Hibiki led his Vanguard closer and slashed down a few more of the fighters that tried to stop him and it seemed that his sudden and unexpected charge had an effect on the enemy's main ship as it halted its attempts to release more of the fighters to engage the Dreads and the Vanguard and seemed to be rallying the surviving fighters to its side to try and halt the Vanguard's charge towards it.

Several of the alien fighters finally managed to stop the Vanguard, just as Dita's Dread came in close and then the Seed like ship fired out a mass of tendrils towards the restrained Vanguard. The tendrils slammed into the pile as the Dread arrived and a massive explosion engulfed the entire area.

"DITA!" Meia cried out in shock and horror as the explosion consumed the Dread.

"That…idiot!" Jura said with a sound of sadness as she turned her eyes away from the explosion.

In the ship's bridge…

Magno sighed at the explosion and looked down, she was starting to like the young loudmouth Tarak youth as he held his own despite not being a professional pilot, Buzam also looked saddened somewhat as she would then have to tell the Spartan of the boy's death.

"I guess the miracle we hoped for didn't arrive after all."

Buzam nodded at the comment and reached for her communicator.

"I'll have the crew begin evacuation procedures…we might to abandon…"

The women and the Navi-robot looked on as a massive hand appeared and crushed the tendrils before it, along with wiping off the burning wreckage of the fighters that tried to stop it, and then a massive figure appeared in the light and heat of the explosion. It was massive…

The machine appeared to be of humanoid form, but was armored head to toe and shaped like a powerful armored warrior with two massive cannons on its back and those appeared to have massive energy focusing crystals on it as well. The machine lost the fiery red color and was decked in deep navy blue armor and had green energy flowing out from several areas along with sections of green crystals…there were also blades on the fore-arms as well.

"What is that?" Both Meia and Jura said at the very same time as they looked at the massive machine that appeared from the explosion.

"What is that? Some new weapon of the men?" Magno said in surprise.

"Is this a real miracle?' Buzam said as well.

The massive robot then charged right for the main ship as several smaller fighters were released to try and stop the new unit from attacking the main ship, but they were pushed away like gnats as the robot went on with the attack, the ship tried to close itself up but the robot merely jammed it's arms forward and began to rip the closed maw back open and then the cannons on the back slid over to the shoulders and they powered up and fired a massive energy beam right into the exposed maw of the ship. The beams ripped through the ship and the ship was consumed in a fiery nova.

"Well…it looks like we're not going to have to abandon ship

Inside the massive mechas cockpit…Hibiki opened his eyes slowly and felt good about himself, he had done something and won…but his relief was replaced with shock and disbelief as he found his hands on a pair of other hands and he then noted that he was not alone in the machine as a certain redhead was on his lap and she leaned back into his chest and sighed happily.

"What's going on here?"

"Hmm…I just knew Mr. Alien was going to save us!"

Hibiki felt shock in him as he wondered if this was the limit of what he could do on his own.

End flash back

"Between those alien ships and that monster back on the planet, you gotta think we were criminals to deserve such treatment?" She laughed at her little joke then she turned to address Meia. "And do you have to report Meia?"

The young blue-haired female nodded as she took her turn.

"The three Dreads that were swallowed up and transformed by the Paeksis, including mine, are no longer able to fit into the regular Dread platforms. We've modified the cargo bay area on the men's side of the ship and are now storing them there. While we were doing so, we made a few discoveries ourselves. It seems that this entire section of the ship hasn't been used for a long period of time. The circuits and conduits are all decayed and useless."

"I see. And what of our enemies?"

"I decided to deploy a scouting party to the wreckage of the alien vessel to see if we can gain any information. Since we're short-handed, I asked for…volunteers."

That perked the veteran pirate's curiosity. "Volunteers you say?"

Out in space… on the way to the alien wreck…

"Wow! Look at that! It's the UFO! Did you see it Ms. Gasco?" The bubble redheaded pilot of the ship called out.

Goscogne sighed as she sat behind Dita onboard the apprentice pilot's Dread Fighter. It was going to be a long investigation in the mind of the older woman.

The engineering section…

The section was now being flooded by several complaints concerning the inactivity of the majority of the ship's systems. One of the more common complaints was the air conditioning as that was one of the systems inactive at the moment. The section got a call from the bridge crew on that particular problem.

"What's with the air-conditioning? It's gotta be at least 100 degrees in here!" One of the bridge crew complained as she loosened her uniform's collar.

Parfet moved to take the call as she unzipped her jump-suit and revealed herself wearing a tank-top like her friend Dita, and tied the sleeves of her jump-suit around her waist.

"Don't complain! the thermostat says 103 degrees down here!"

She directed her attention to one of her subordinates who seemed to be trying to restrain something. "So how's it going?"

The technician gave her boss a sigh and went back to work in struggling with the Navi-robot, trying her best to hook up the little automaton to a console to lock in its systems in a plan to determine the ship's condition. However the machine wasn't in a rather cooperative mood.

"Beep! DON"T TOUCH ME!" It shouted as it continued to struggle against its restraints almost like a child who was refusing it shot.

Meanwhile, at another section of the ship…

Paiway was rather busy sitting on an elevator which was on its way up to the other sections of the ship. She was more pre-occupied with the fact that she was now writing on her usual companion apart from her frog puppet-handbag, that being her diary.

"As the valiant pirate crew continued to do their best to survive in a new hostile environment, Magno's family suddenly found themselves in a new and difficult crisis."

It was then… "Hey! Hold that elevator!"

Paiway looked up from her diary and saw her fellow pirates, Jura and Barnette carrying various personal items in their arms. The reason for this sudden haul was that due to the changes caused by the Paeksis during the initial transformation of the two ships, the entire residential areas the pirate crew originally lived in were completely covered by the crystals which forced the unfortunate few to relocate themselves into new rooms "Slacking off again, Paiway?"

Barnette asked in a rather irritated tone, no doubt not forgetting that Paiway had nearly made her into a human ice cube.

"Instead of just sitting around doing nothing, why don't you do something more important?"

Jura asked as she managed to regain a better grip on her items as she stood.

"I am doing something!" The apprentice nurse replied as she held out her diary for her comrades to see, then held up her green handbag puppet frog and began to speak in a comic, cartoon like voice. "Barnette and Jura sure have a lot of stuff." She then directed her attention to her puppet as if she was speaking to it. "It's a good thing that our room wasn't changed so we don't have to move out right? Kero!"

Jura gave a rather irritated look at the precocious eleven-year old nurse. "She's really beginning to piss me off." She growled.

Barnette gave a silent nod, but then her attention focused on a strange rope harness on Paiway's waist.

"Hey Pai, what's that rope on your waist for?"

Paiway answered her comrade's question with her puppet's voice.

"This is only a temporary elevator, so it won't be my fault if it falls. See you later. Kero!"

The young girl was then hoisted upward and off the lift, leaving behind the two Dread pilots in a state of shock.

"You're kidding right!" no answer "Paiway!"

Inside the wreck of the alien mother ship…

The head supplier looked through everything that she could see. The ship looked like someone stuffed one massive bomb into it for the sheer spectacle. What remained of the ship look almost like someone smashed a melon with a hammer, the entire insides of the ship was gutted and was left in the open like an old wound. She sighed and responded to the call of her commanding officer.

"Progress here is real slow, the search is much more extensive than originally though, considering the damage that the Vandread caused to the alien ship, it's a miracle this wreck's even out here. We've got a lot of things to go through at this point. But to tell you the truth Captain, this thing isn't like any ship I've ever seen before, it resembles more of a mobile factory than any ship I've ever seen."

Dita however paid no attention to what the conversation was between the supply officer and her captain as she was rather busy taking pictures of the alien ship she and her Mr. Alien had destroyed together. Then she spotted something.

"Wow! Look at that!" Dita exclaimed as she spotted something and began to point at it. "Hey, Ms. Gasco! Can I take a look around?"

Gascogne was in no mood to have the young Dread pilot go anywhere on her own, so her answer was simple decisive and left no room for argument.

"Absolutely not! We've got a very important job to do here Dita, and sightseeing is not part of that job!"

With that she flicked her finger on the surface of Dita's helmet-visor. In the vacuum of space, this gentle yet firm push had sent the young redhead flying backwards.

"Whoa! I can't stop! Ms. Gasco help me!"

The pirate Captain smiled a bit at that as she signed off.

"Very well then. I'll leave the investigation up to you, Gascogne."

Magno sighed as she leaned back and shook her head.

Inside the navigation well, Bart still naked and surrounded in the holographic display of the outer environment of the ship was very cautious in his movements, still worried that any sudden movements he could make would throw the entire ship and crew into disarray.

"Okay… let's see here…uhhh…okay…"

All of a sudden, the ships once inactive systems as well as its main drive came online and the vessel leaped forward and began to accelerate away from the wreck of the alien vessel. The sudden movement caught everyone on the ship off guard as the inertia dampeners and stabilizers were unable to cope with the sudden surprise movement. Crew members from all around the ship were thrown against walls; others lost their balance and fell down. Jura and Barnette seemed to have gotten it the worse as they were the only ones in the fragile elevator, they were each thrown off their feet in the elevator as their trunks and bags were scattered all over the make shift elevator.

Back on the bridge, the crew tried to stop the ship but wasn't getting anywhere.

"The system just booted up and we're now on some unknown heading!" One of the bridge officers called out.

Magno wasn't in a good mood as she got in touch with Bart at the navigation well and shouted.

"What in blazes did you just do in there?"

The image showed Bart as he shook his head in a panic. "Hold on! I didn't mean to do anything! the ships flying itself I swear!" he screamed at the screen not knowing what to do.

At the wreckage…

Gascogne nodded with satisfaction as she took out the data disk from the downloader unit they placed on the wreck's systems to gain the needed data. She was now looking forward to be back at the Register office with her crew again.

"All right, I've finished copying the data. Let's hurry and get back to the ship."

"Roger." Dita replied as she nodded and activated her suit's built-in maneuvering thrusters to propel her towards the opening. However, the moment she got there, she gave out a gasp, as she could not find the ship, as it was nowhere in sight.

"huh Ms. Gosco, where's the ship?"

The bridge…

"Ms. Gasco! Can you hear me? Ms. Gasco!" Ezra cried as she tried to hail both the head supply officer and the young Dread pilot, but had made no progress. The young woman then began to sweat profusely as her breathing became more shallow as time went on.

"Deploy the buoys!" BC ordered, but had turned her attention went she heard a person collapse and a shout was heard. She looked in shock as she spotted the gentle Ezra lying on her console, her face was deep red has she struggles to breath.

"EZRA!"

medical bay

Duelo was having what could only be described as an interesting day, since gaining access to the ships vast amounts of medical data which included books and medical journals that covered subjects he had never even heard before he had constantly been studying.

In between him treating some of the crew members who were harmed during the hostile attack only a few hours ago, he had been running tests on the ships strangest inhabitant Kratos. Duelo like all of the ship's crew had seen just what this imposing man was capable of doing, and like every else he was awe struck by this man strength, fearlessness and over all presence.

Duelo looked over his notes again as he remembered that said man was still in the room. He had asked the pale man if he needed any medical assistance after he hoisted and flipped the ship single handedly, he said it wasn't necessary but Duelo wore at him as time went on. After a few threats to Duelos life he even allowed the young medic to give him a simple physical. what Duelo noticed was this man, despite being surprisingly advanced in age, was at peak athletic condition. the man's super human strength as well as his body durability stunned him

Between fighting and killing the monster and lifting the ship, Duelo theorized that the man before him had the base level of almost 1000 full grown men from Turok maybe more, he based this particular hypothesis on no basis what so ever. he went through several needles looking for blood samples before he just gave up and moved on noticing how not a single one was even capable of piercing his skin.

He noticed that his large patient seemed to have deep rooted anger issues due to his impatience with the tests as well as the amount of time it took for him to administer the tests.

He wasn't going to press his luck by trying to get this mountain of a man to open up and share his inner most feelings with him, however. Honestly he enjoyed breathing too much to do that.

Suddenly the doors to the medic bay slid open as what Duelo noticed the ships second in command walked being flanked by members of the security detail as well as another woman who was brought in on a stretcher. His medical instincts taking hold ,he rushed to the woman's side and began checking her vitals

"What happened to her?"

She's burning up, she must have collapsed from this heat" B.C said, worry evident in her voice but still she chose to at least try and stay calm during this situation

"Bring her to the bed" Duello almost shouted at the women who had escorted the commander and the fallen bridge operator.

Before the stretcher could be moved however the unconscious body was lifted like a feather and gently placed onto the bed surprisingly by Kratos

"Get her water and make her as comfortable as possible"

"

You know of her condition?" to say the young medic was surprised would have been an under statement

"I've seen my fair share of this yes, we have to try and get her fever down as fast as possible"

Back at the bridge…

Bart was in full out panic mode as he tried in desperation to determine where the ship was heading; he got his answer as they were heading into a nebula. And in truth… he didn't like the answer.

"We're going in there! How do I stop this crazy ship?"

The ship didn't seem to care much about Bart's complaints and dove headlong into the mix of gases of the nebula's outer ring. Various chunks of ice and debris flew all around the ship and smacked into the hull of the fused vessel. Unfortunately for the cowardly Bart, due to the neural interface link between him and the ship, then anything that collided with the ship came to hit him in the form of PAIN. A stray chunk of ice smacked into the top near the bow, which caused him to yelp in pain. As the hit felt like a blow to his head and that threw him back a bit.

"Will somebody please raise the shields!" he called out while rubbing his head.

Bart wasn't the only one with problems on the ship. At least ninety percent of all operating systems were offline. Jura and her buddy Barnette found themselves trapped inside the elevator, buried underneath their own possessions. They were in a rather difficult situation as along with their belongings, which were clothes and personal items, were also some firearms and live ammunition. Meia on the other hand was in dismay as she had found out that the Dread platforms were also offline. That naturally meant that she couldn't send anyone to rescue Gascogne and Dita.

Duero also had problems, he was following kratos advice and keeping the fallen women as cool as possible, her temperature was slowly but surely decreasing, but the progress was slow as he was still not quite used to the medical technology of the women.

He then thought about it, really with all this advanced technology why was he needed to help, surly the young nurse despite her age was probably much more knowledgeable with these machines then he was. He directed this inquiry to BC; the silver-haired women gave a simple smirk and told Duero that he was showing his status as an elite of his world. She then explained that with all the major systems offline they needed all the help they could get. Besides, he could learn all about the female physiology first hand. While Duero was running a scanner over Ezra's body to try and discover the cause of the woman ailment, the lights went out; indicating that power to the medical facility was cut off as the ship took its little bath in the nebula's outer gas ring. With one quick lighting fast motion he took a communicator from the hip holster of an aide, who made no bones in showing her surprise and displeasure at that.

"I'm trying to work on a patient here! Make power to the medical bay a top priority!"

Duero ordered in a totally no nonsense tone as he contacted the engineering section of the ship.

In the engineering section, Parfet was exasperated as she took Duero's call.

"I'd love to do that also, but we've got our own problems here as well! I can't do much right now since I can't read the men's language!"

Duero then directed his attention to Buzam, who was watching him check on Ezra.

"If I were there, I could help them read it as it's all in my home-planet's language."

The first officer shrugged her shoulders and nodded in agreement.

"Go right ahead, but be back here to finish your examination or else." She smiled at hi hinting at an almost casual nature, letting him know that she really didn't have any malice towards him personally

"don't worry, I will." Was Duero's reply as he headed for the Engineering Section, not noticing several of the girls still in the room blushing at him as he left.

Kratos just stood there looking down at the now peaceful Ezra sleeping soundly on the same bed he awoke from. He was staring intently at the woman's stomach as it rose in feel in connection to the woman's breath.

Engineering…

The moment Duero stepped into the Engineering area, the reaction to his presence was simple.

"It's a man!" One of the engineers under Parfet screamed as she caught sight of the young Tarak doctor.

Parfet simply glanced at Duero and nodded her approval of his arrival. "Oh, you're here. Good." She then led the doctor over to the worktable where the little Navi-Robot was hooked up to one of the consoles. "I can't do much with all this data if I can't read it."

"It's just a Hi-type #6 data feed." Duero replied as he examined the data being shown on the Navi-Robot's screen. He was rather curious about the little setup the engineer had going on. "What exactly where you trying to do here anyway?"

Parfet began to explain with a little sheepishness to the young physician that the Navi-Robot and the ship's reactor somehow seemed to be linked together. She had thought that the robot would make a good sensor. However, with the language of the men in front of her, she couldn't figure out the reason for the ship's current condition.

Duero nodded as he looked a bit more at the data. "According to this readout, there seems to be a massive built-up of impurities, probably from the merging of the two ships."

"Maybe, so can you fix it?" Parfet asked as she gazed at the young medic.

"I'm sorry to say this, but I'm a doctor, I'm no engineer."

This made Parfet a bit pissed off ,so to speak.

"That's no excuse! Everything that moves is alive! It's a doctor's duty to fix all living things, right? That's what I believe in at least!"

Duero's curiosity was peaked as he gazed at the feisty female engineer before him. "You have a very interesting view of things." He replied as he removed his trench coat.

As soon as the vessel's lower section immersed itself into the nebula's outer gas ring, the engines went on full shutdown. The ship was now propelled by pure momentum now.

"Engines have now shut down, captain." One of the bridge crew, a brown haired and brown skinned woman reported as she gazed at the monitors. Her name was Amarone Slatheav and she was the best friend of all the other bridge crewmembers.

Magno sighed as she was now being cooled by an ice pack over her head and a portable fan was nearby as well. "Just when I get the good news that we've stopped, we now are in a nebula of all the places." It was then that the fan near her shut down as well.

"Captain! Sensors indicate that another section of the ship is now transforming again." Reported another member of the bridge crew, a blonde and a blue-eyed girl by the name of Belvedere Coco.

Outside of the ship's hull, near the arm areas of the ship, new crystal formations appeared as the ship once more went into a transformation.

"Curious." Duero commented as he checked the data being displayed through the Navi-robot's screen. "It seems that the ship is reacting to the gaseous composition of the nebula's outer ring."

Parfet considered the data for a moment then smacked her fist into her open palm. "That's it! The ship must be trying to use the gases in the nebula to neutralize the impurities inside its systems!"

Duero nodded as he was in full agreement to the engineer's answer. "Amazing! It seems that the ship is reacting almost like living being."

**Back at the wreckage**

Dita looked through her binoculars. "All I can see are the markers Ms. Gasco." She reported back as soon as she saw the buoys deployed by the ship.

"Something must have happened then." Gascogne thought about the change of plans for a few moments and then after weighing her options, spoke. "Well, we got as much information as we can from this trash lets head back to the dread"

"Roger."

Just as the two women were now making their way back to Dita's Dread, the wreck that was once a ship supposedly came on without warning. Its destroyed systems came back online as The heat and motion sensors detected the presence of both Dita and Gascogne; it deployed massive metallic tentecles that moved like serpant attacking its prey.

Dita noticed it first " Ms. Gosco look out!" but it was too late

the metallic arms hardens and encased the closest pirate, which happened to be none other than the chief supply officer Gascogne. Before the older woman knew it, she was the proverbial fly trapped in the spider's web as the tendrils surrounded her into a makeshift cage.

**Back at the pirate vessel**

"Captain, I have an idea." Buzam called in as she got into contact with the bridge and to her commanding officer through the active communication systems. She was currently in the sub-bridge of the former Ikazuchi colony ship.

"Go ahead BC." Magno sighed as she continued to try her best to remain cool despite the sweltering heat, which indicated that the temperature had just hit a few extra degrees in the bridge.

"Since the Dread launching platforms are still offline, we can't launch any of the Dreads to retrieve Gascogne and Dita. but…"she stopped s if she was testing the waters and gauging her captain's reaction.

"Go on" Magno inquired as she tried to shift to a more comfortable position on the command chair.

"However since the Vanguard launching platforms are still operational. Though there is a potentially high risk factor involved, but we could have that young man named Hibiki to go out into space and retrieve them." BC spoke earnestly

"Hmmm…. I guess it is our best option. All right then B.C, Explain the situation to him and see if he agrees to it."

"Thank you, Captain." But just as BC was about to sign off, Magno took a look at the second in command's location.

"how is Ezra doing"

"The man named Duello has her stabilized, unfortunately the power went out, and he's with Parfet now"

"Parfet huh well he certainly is getting around"

"What was that captain?"

"Nothing, just rambling is all"

**At the Cell**

"Man… it is hot in here!" Hibiki said to himself in a tired voice as he lounged on the floor clad only in his loin cloth like boxer shorts. He took off most of his clothes as the heat became unbearable by the minute.

" I think I'm going to die."

"My, my, don't you men have any shame?"

Hibiki gave a look to BC. "Look who's talking! Don't you women ever consider knocking BEFORE seeing someone in their undergarments?" He replied as he as well began to put on his clothes.

"You can calm down, I'm not here to cause conflict."

The third class citizen then gave a suspicious and curious look at the silver-haired woman.

"I know you're not here to visit so what Do you want from me?"

Buzam nodded. "I've come… to ask you a favor."her voice filled with doubt, almost worrying what the boys answer would be

"A favor huh? That favor being?" hibachi asked as he pulled his pants all the way up

"Two of our crew were left behind when this ship dove into the nebula. I would like to ask you to go out and find them in your vangaurd."

Hibiki then answered back. "What makes you think I'll help women?"

"My my and I thought men were a proud race willing to help anyone." B.C. said

"You don't know anything about men, so stop pretending like we're some kind of friends when we're not" hibikis face was right up to the metal bars, trying his best to look as tough as possible, the silver haired woman was not impressed in the slightest.

"I'm not quite sure you realized this but right now we are not enemies, you have been allowed to leave these cells since we left that planet"

"Out of the four men on this planet you are the only one that has chosen to still act like we're at war, and do me a favor don't act like such a hard ass when you were petrified before going to your first battle"

Hibiki took a step away from her, and turned around and sat down, the commander was about to leave and report her failure when she heard "Fine I'll go search for them."

The woman smirked and opened the unlocked gate and said "Now Hibiki follow the guard that's by the door. She'll escort you to the vanguard hanger."

**At the alien wreckage**

"It's no use, Ms. Gasco!" Dita cried as her latest attempt at freeing her comrade failed.

At this point the older female and the pirates' chief supply officer was more concerned about her current predicament than reminding the young Dread pilot that her name was Gascogne. The metallic cage that trapped her was well designed and kept her from escaping. Dita had attempted to use the built-in blasters of her suit, but the metallic tendrils were too dense for the lasers to cut through.

Dita then got an idea. "I'll get the tools from the Dread!"

Gascogne shook her head in disagreement at that.

"Don't bother with that now Dita. Have you forgotten our mission here? Someone has to go to the ship with that data in that disk! You take your Dread and head back to the ship!"

Dita looked horrified at that and shook her head. "Ms. Gasco! I can't just leave you here like this!"

"Who said anything about you leaving me here to rot anyway? This isn't some third-rate soap opera! You can come back for me with more help, right? Now hurry up Dita and get going!"

Dita nodded reluctantly as she knew that Gascogne was right, she turned around and headed for her waiting interceptor.

However, the moment she was out of sight, the insides of the ship reactivated itself again. Panels all over the section of the wrecked vessel opened revealing more of the alien fighters and several smaller types, which could be repair drones of some sort. Gascogne immediately began to have this sinking feeling behind her spine.

**Back at the nebula**

"Sensors have detected a massive object, which has a direct collision path with us. It appears to be an asteroid-sized chunk of ice." Amarone reported to Magno as her sensors confirmed the object heading for the ship.

"Did you hear that? Do something now!" Magno cried out to Bart who was still in the navigation well.

However, Bart was in the middle of a hysterical screaming fit as he also spotted the incoming asteroid, and was now of no help to anyone whatsoever

In the engineering section, at the mean time…

"The input/output ratio is off." Duero remarked as he checked the readouts in front of him. Through using the screen display of the Navi-robot.

"That's because there aren't enough link routes to handle the strain!" Parfet declared at her own end of her monitor.

"But the existing ones can't handle the strain on their own."

"Don't give up yet! There HAS to be an answer!"

The physician thought for several moments, considering the situation they were in, and then he decided to approach this situation the way Parfet viewed and thought of it. If it really was behaving like a living organism, then perhaps his training in medicine and his doctoring skills would apply.

"How about a bypass then? In medicine, when there is a blocked artery, then all you have to do is make an alternate route to clear the path and relieve congestion."

Parfet nodded, as she understood what Duero had in mind. "A detour huh? Great idea doctor!" She reached him and patted her hand on his left shoulder in agreement. "You know… you wouldn't make a bad engineer!" She turned preying to whatever deity that he wouldn't notice her face literary burning and directed her attention to her staff who were all blushing as well, thinking quickly she broke the ice by snapping everyone out of their stupor and began giving new orders. "Listen up, everybody! We're going to get busy!"

Duero looked down at his shoulder and contemplated Parfait's touch**.**

**Back at the wreck**

Gascogne looked in morbid fascination and amazement as she witnessed the least damaged of the alien fighters as well as the smaller drones begin making repairs on their mother ship with clean-cut efficiency, which confirmed her suspicions that the so called alien vessel was actually some kind of massive mobile factory.

"They can regenerate under these conditions?" The head supply officer remarked clearly a loss for words at the sight.

It was then she caught movement through the corner of her eye, she turned and saw something very large and rather ominous heading for her direction. The machine looked like some massive type of bug, with a massive array of clawed appendages, and two large soulless eyes focusing solely on her. She had a very good idea about its reason for watching her, and it wasn't good news for her.

The head supplier laughed nervously as she focused her own gaze at the mechanized bug as she said. "I guess I know what you want for dinner."

**Out in deep space**

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! NO!"

Dita cried out as she was now running for her life, as several enemy fighters were chasing her and taking pot shots at her Dread. She used every evasive maneuver she had learned from her fellow Dread pilots and her comrade and leader Meia, and any other maneuver she could think of at the moment. But the alien fighters remained behind her and had no intention of letting the young redhead escape.

"I REALLY HATE ALIENS WHO DON'T KNOW WHEN TO GIVE UP!"

It was at this point that her ship's sensors warned her of another approaching blip heading for her.

"Their coming from the front too!" Dita asked in growing panic.

At that instant, one of the fighters pursuing her managed to hit near her Dread, the fighter rocked by that near miss, making accidentally activate her ship's weapons and firing them. Twin beams of destruction lanced forward and caused a small explosion some distance away from her as soon as they struck their target. However, as soon as the explosion faded four massive beams launched back. The beams however, passed over Dita's Dread without hitting the fighter and turned her pursuers into scrap metal. It was at this moment that Dita was close enough to spot what was in front of her.

Hibiki was not in a good mood. "HEY! IS THAT ANY WAY TO THANK THE PERSON WHO CAME OUT TO GET YOU OR WHAT!"

(And this is the thanks I get for coming to save a woman.)

Dita however became overjoyed at seeing Hibiki. "Mr. Alien! You came for me!" She then made her Dread accelerate towards his vanguard.

"Hold on! Wait a minute here!" The young pilot activated his vanguards braking thrusters to decelerate, but as soon as his vanguard and the Dread were in close proximity to one another, there came a bright flare of light. Vanguard and Dread once more became Vandread Dita.

"Wow! What is all this?" Dita asked in delight as she tried to gaze at everything she could see, as she now sat on Hibiki's lap in the cockpit of the massive Vandread

"Hey! Will you please stop moving around so much?" Hibiki said.

The young Dread pilot smiled as she turned to face her Mr. Alien. "I just want you to know, that I believed that you would come, and I knew that you would rescue me."

Hibiki tried not to blush as Dita's face was at least half a foot away from his. He then tried to hide the blush. "I didn't come here to save you!" He retorted angrily, using his anger as a shield to hide his reactions to the young woman in front of him. "I… just went out to look for you… that's all."

"Well thank you." Dita said happily.

**Ship wreck**

Gascogne was definitely not liking her situation as it unfolded in front of her. The mechanized bug began to efficiently cut away the tendrils that held her. She knew that the machine was only doing so to get to her.

"You guys work pretty efficiently. I don't suppose I could make you consider working for us?" Gascogne tried to sound confident which was a sharp contrast to the fear she was feeling as the automaton came closer to her.

The response of the machine was to simply extend a wicked and deadly looking appendage with claws that looked VERY sharp.

By then the chief supply officer for the pirates was sweating. "I'll take that as a no"

"So, now I guess it's my turn to die, never saw it ending like this"

However, the automaton couldn't reach her with its surgical arm, as the thing was suddenly swallowed by something metallic and rather huge. It was instantly crushed into a mangled mess of parts as Gascogne looked out and saw the Van dread outside.

Gascogne sighed with relief, as she was now sure that Dita had brought in the cavalry.

"You guys put off saving me until the last possible moment, but I guess I couldn't have asked for a better stage ending."

**Back at the pirate ship's engineering room**

"We've managed to secure at least thirty-six bypasses to the reactor and the main systems of the ship!" Parfet declared as she checked in through the monitor on her console. "How are things on your end, doctor?"

Duero sighed as he closed the Navi-robot's panel and faced his colleague. "I can't do any more back here I'm afraid to report. We'll just have to make due with what we have now."

Parfet knew that despite then newly installed bypasses, those were not enough. "The balance ratio will be completely thrown off if there aren't enough link routes!"

"Do you know what doctors do during a time like this and when in this kind of situation? We then believe in the patient's desire and will to live."

The female engineer smiled and nodded.

**Back at the bridge**

A massive chunk of ice continued its path of collision with the fused vessel as the crew frantically tried to avoid disaster.

On the Command Bridge, Magno's mouth was in a tight straight line as her bridge team continued to report.

"Distance is now twelve hundred kilometers and closing…" Amarone reported as she stayed at her station.

It looked like the end to Magno; however that was until the fan near her suddenly came back online…

"Huh?" the pirate Captain could say in surprise.

Belvedere gave a cry of joy as she checked the readouts on her console. "The system just rebooted itself!"

Down at the engineering section, the Navi-robot became active once more, stood up on its feet and smartly saluted both Duero and Parfet.

"Beep! I'm back in service!"

"Yes! We did it! We make a great team!" Parfet whooped with joy as she reached out clasped Duero's hand in her own, then she looked down at both their hands for a moment and blushed as she gazed briefly at Duero.

Duero also felt rather… odd, as he also found his gaze torn between his hand held in Parfet's own and her face.

"HARD TO STARBOARD, THIRTY DEGREES!" Magno shouted to Bart in the navigational well.

"AAAAAHHHHH! IT'S TOO LATE!" Bart screamed in fear as he immediately braced himself for imminent destruction.

Then, there came a massive explosion in front of the vessel, but it wasn't the ice colliding with the ship's hull. Bart opened his eyes as he felt no pain at all, all he could see was that the asteroid was completely vaporized and in the things place was the Vandread flying in front of them.

"Humph! So he saves the day at the last minute once again!" Bart said with both disdain and jealousy.

Inside the VanDread's cockpit…

"Man! I am SO tired!" Hibiki sighed as he leaned back on the command chair.

"See! I told you it was amazing!" Dita said excitedly as she bounced up and down on Hibiki's lap, making the young pilot even more agitated and nervous, as she was bouncing once more on a certain part of his anatomy.

Beside them, in very obvious discomfort was Gascogne. "Yeah, yeah it was. So how about getting me the heck out of here?"

**Later that day**

Magno got into contact with every member of her crew onboard the ship as she and BC prepared to make a special announcement.

"We have deciphered the data that was salvaged from the wreckage long before Vandread Dita. I want all of you to take a good look at this" BC said as she changed the image in the holographic display screen to all the monitors on the ship, the images depicted a rather strange looking planet.

"This is the enemy's home world. We don't have a full estimation of the planet's exact location, but apparently they are in possession of some very serious firepower. They seem to perceive our presence as in invasion of their system so therefore, we expect more hostile encounters and battles on our return to Tarak and Mejale space."

The first officer continued her briefing as she let her words sink in to the crew.

"We have also discovered that the enemy is planning a major operation, which calls for the total obliteration of our home-planet of Mejale and the male planet of Tarak. For rather unknown reasons, a hostile force is fully intent on wiping out our two worlds."

Then the captain took over.

"We are, as you all know are pirates and as such we therefore have no bonds to either Mejale or Tarak. However, it would not be in our best interests for this unknown and hostile force to wipe out our potential 'customers.' Therefore, I intend to reach our home system before the enemy has the opportunity and inform both our worlds of this crisis. In order for this mission to be successful, we must incorporate the men we have captured into part of our crew."

The old woman continued to speak. "There are many things that we don't understand, such as this ship and that large mecha; However, I expect that we shall learn more, one day at a time. That is all."

Just as soon as she shut off the comm.-link, Ezra and Duero entered the bridge. As soon as the ship's systems were in full operational condition, Duero returned to the medical bay and finished his examination of Ezra's odd condition.

"I'm sorry about before." Ezra apologized at the old woman. "I'll be returning to my station now."

BC directed her attention to the young Tarak medic. "Did you find the cause of Ezra's fever?"

Duero nodded. "There was nothing wrong with the patient's vital signs and functions, but she seemed tired, for unknown reasons, that is until I made a thorough examination. There seems to be some sort of parasitic organism feeding off my patient's body internally."

That statement alarmed Magno as she looked at the gentle woman, but Ezra shook her head while trying to hide her blushing face.

"No! No! It's not like that! It seems… I'm going to have a baby."

As soon as the word baby escaped the meek woman's lips Magno relaxed and gave a bright smile to Ezra, while Belvedere, Amarone and the rest of the bridge crew became very excited as they crowded around the mother-to-be.

"When in the world did you become a fahma?" Belvedere asked with joy coating her voice.

"So who's the ohma?" Amarone asked as well.

All this naturally confused Bart, as he was not aware of the birthing methods on the home-planet of the women. "But I thought that babies were born in a factory."

The young medic pondered this information for a moment. "Come to think of it, I have heard this rumor that females reproduced internally."

Ezra bowed her head at Magno. "Forgive me, Captain. I had intended to you after the last raid on the men, but…"

Magno smiled more and waved it off. "There's nothing to apologize for, Ezra. I hope that you give birth to a healthy girl."

"C'mon Ezra! Who's the ohma?" Belvedere asked at her comrade.

"What is that exactly?" Duero asked with genuine interest. He never told anyone on his planet, that part of his reason to become a doctor was because of his fascination with the mysteries of female physiology.

"The ohma is the one who donate the egg and the fahma is the one who nurtures it in her womb. Don't you know anything?" Belvedere almost berated the young doctor, sounding somewhat disappointed with the male

"In all honesty, this is the first time I've ever heard of it."

As they continued their discussion of Ezra's pregnancy, none of them noticed Buzam edging her way to a console and removing a small data disk.

"We certainly have our share of surprises today, right BC?" Magno asked her first mate.

The first mate turned quickly and managed to hide the disk from her Captain's eyes as she directed her attention to the old woman. "Err, yes Captain!"

"The whole crew will have to work as hard as they can, especially for the new life that will be joining us soon."

"It's going to be a long journey then." Buzam added.

"Yes, it will be a long journey indeed." Magno nodded.

**Elevator shaft**

"Why*sob* why hasn't anyone come for us"

We're going to die here I just knew it

I'm to young and beautiful to die like this

Suddenly they felt movement as they could feel the entire platform being lifted from the bottom of the elevator shaft

"Oh Barnette I'm telling you it's a goddess, an absolute goddess, I knew the universe wouldn't allow a natural beauty like me to perish like that"

If she could the purple haired dread fighter would have face palmed, but her entire body was covered with piles of cloths, bags and debris, she was just thanking her lucky stars that this whole ordeal was over. But the thought crossed her mind who was their savior

The ride was quicker than the two expected, to them the fall must of felt like it was from higher up, but the platform was quickly raised to a point where they could safely jump off along with their remaining stuff and not be harmed.

The second they steadyed themselves they each looked up to see the visual of their scared and heavily muscled savior. Kratos heard their pleas for help and following his new mantra of what would his family like for him to do he grabbed the cut rope at his feet and pulled the two women to safety.

They both stared up at kratos as his muscles were still flexed whilst holding the platform, he scoffed at them and dropped the it down the elevator shaft, the two women didn't hear the crash for a very long time.

As he turned and left he could still feel the young women's eyes on him "stupid children" he muttered once and continued on his way.

Jura and Barnette both had been raised since birth to both despise the men of Turok, and all males in general.

"W-wow" jura said, un-used to these certain butterfly in her stomach or the very pleasant feelings and images playing in her mind

"Y-yeah" Barnette uttered also at a loss for words to describe these new feelings she was experiencing

That's about it for now anyway, I do hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, I thank everyone who has left a review, I'm actually surprised on the number of hits this story has gotten

Considering that Vandread fan fiction audience is relatively small, especially compared with naruto and the like.

I'm thinking about maybe starting a new story while working on this one

They're on my profile, if you find them interesting enough, leave which one you want done in a review. The story with the most votes I'll do first

Peace out

p.s kratos will not be paired with anyone but his wife, that last part was just for fun

p.s.s Duelo will be a pimp in this story, fair warning

p.s.s.s I'm considering bringing more GOW characters into later chapters, what do you think, who and why. Again still iffy.


	4. Chapter 4

Kratos dreamscape

Kratos watched the scene play before him, as if he was the lone member of a plays audience, frozen in place watching the scenes before intently despite knowing full well what was going to happen. Despite defeating his demons and overcoming his past, he was still plagued by nightmares of his past.

It wasn't anywhere near as bad as it once was, not too long ago he couldn't close his eye for a second without being bombarded with visions of his horrid past, luckily for kratos since that time his mind was clear. With his vengeance fulfilled and his past forgiven by those he loved he has been able to rest. Gone were the days where the constant flashbacks and horrifying images played over and over again in his mind when he was awake or asleep. Since being sent to this new world his dreams have been what would kratos would describe as simply heaven to the living hell he was used to.

Memories he himself thought forgotten re-surfaced, the day he met the woman he would marry when they were children to the day of their wedding, the birth of his daughter as well as every birthday she ever had, the happy memories he practically erased from his mind descended upon his psyche and truly put his mind, body, and soul at ease. However as kratos soon found out like all men he was still susceptible to the occasional nightmare.

This night happened to be one of them; He looked on silently as a memory of his youth played before him. This day's events burned deep into kratos mind,

It was still strange to see himself so young, how different he was now, almost like an entirely different person, the boy in front of him look to be about 12 just starting to show signs of maturity and eventual manhood. his skin was tan due to constant exposure to the harsh Spartan sun from constant training, his skin showed no signs of the future battles scars and trauma he would put his body through in the coming years his face was round still having some of the chubbiness of his youth but even back then he had a stony and almost angry look about him, light stubble just starting to grow upon his chin and the sides of his face with brown hair barely visible due to it short buzz cut rested on top.

Kratos eyed the fallen boy trying to lift himself out of the rubble he found himself in, blood dripping down the fresh slash above his right eye; kratos himself sub-consciously traced the scar that came from the same slash over his eye with his hand.

The buildings around him were on fire, the intense heat generated from the flames warmed his entire body threatening to leave painful burns all over his body if he got too close to the flickering fire. He heard screams all around him, as unseen monsters battled the Spartan army within the city as women and children hid in fear. The smell of blood filled the air mixing the odder of burning limber and flesh. Red and orange hues clouded his vision, the light from the fire reflecting off of everything almost blinding him in its golden glow.

The city was being attacked from a force that seemed to be beyond anything kratos had seen at that young point of his life. He did not know it at the time, but the perpetrators of the siege of Sparta was in fact Olympus itself. The sibling War gods, Ares and Athena led the attack, for reasons that would later lead to the world's eventual downfall.

An oracle foretold that the demise of Olympus would come by a marked warrior. In their desperate bid to change their fates, the gods searched high and low for any sign of this masked warrior so he would be snuffed out before he was given the opportunity to vanquish them. With the blood of Zeus flowing through his veins as well as the strange birthmarks covering his body Deimos, youngest son of Callisto of Sparta seemed to be the best choice.

The two patron gods of warfare descended upon the city with an army of undead and beasts to search for the youth, they themselves surveyed the damage and the destruction on horses as the bypassed the actual fighting to collect the youth themselves. When they stepped closer that was when the young kratos decided to act, he ran up towards one of the figures, the physically larger of the two mounted gods, and planed on delivering a powerful stab with his spear. The blow was parried by Ares as simply as one would take an intake of breath. With speed and power a human could only dream of having, the Olympian backhanded the Spartan youth as if he were nothing but a fly or some other nascence not even good enough to allow Ares to waste his time on him. The power held in the blow was enough to send young kratos flying back s dozen yards into a local merchants stall shattering it into splinters.

In a flash kratos perspective changed as he saw through the eyes of his younger self as he watched the two mounted figures incased in darkness take his brother away as he kicked and screamed for kratos to save him, as he desperately tried in vain to escape the grip of the war god. Kratos tried in desperation to lift his broken childhood up but did have the power of strength as if his actions were locked and predetermined to go along with his childhood memories. None of that mattered now though, not the death all around him, not the sound of his mother calling out for him, not the feeling of blood rush down his eye as he tried to lift himself of the ground as his entire body screamed at him to stay down. All his attention was directed souly on his brother, his baby brother Deimos.

To say kratos was over protective of his younger brother would be the understatement, growing up in the warring city state of Sparta without a farther caused kratos to grow up quick and grow up mean just to survive, Deimos however was not kratos. He was soft and lacked the killing instinct that separated Sparta from the rest Greece. From the standards of Sparta Deimos was deemed Weak, and was threatened to be left to die.

kratos wouldn't let that happen to him as he worked all day every day with his brother to ensure his survival in the cut throat city of Sparta. Practicing spear thrusts and shield movements as well as straight sparing which what they were doing today before the attack.

The last clear picture kratos had before everything going black was the sight of his brother fighting tooth and nail to break free from the hold of the mounted horseman as the fire around him consumed and destroyed everything in its path.

As the last of the memory played within kratos mind his body began to stir and his mind began to refocus. His deep green eyes fluttered open as he lifted his massive form out the bed the captain had given him.

In one of the ladies rooms…

Belvedere was powdering her face with her make-up unit while looking at herself in a mirror as she had a discussion with her fellow bridge bunny Amarone about the latest gossip about men During their change in shifts of the bridge crew

"Did you hear the latest rumors? I heard that men seem to have some strange tube stuck between their legs."

The reaction of the dark skinned pirate was rather obvious.

"No way! Are you sure it's not some kind of antennae? Gross!" The young woman explained whilst covering her mouth with her hands to stop her giggling fit.

"If that rumor was true, then I wonder if that 'thing' between their legs makes it difficult for them to walk."

They were not aware that there was someone else listening on their little gossip session as a certain redhead was all ears to that little rumor.

Dita listened eagerly to her comrades while hiding in one of the stalls as the two discussed the latest gossip about men. As soon as she understood what Belvedere was talking about, she looked on her own body and noted with slight curiosity and disappointment that she didn't have that said appendage on her. She smiled to herself as and then decided to find out whether this rumor was true about one of the Mr. Aliens

As Dita was going down the hallway down to the men's quarters her curious question was just about to be answered as Hibiki came just around the corner and headed for the one of the rest rooms designated for the men. As quick and as quiet as she could be Dita then snuck in behind hibiki without him noticing. Just when Hibiki was about to releve himself, he saw a certain red haired young woman kneeling behind him with an innocent smile plastered on her face.

"AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHH! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU STUPID GIRL?" Hibiki asked in both shock and embarrassment, as he had just unbuckled and took off his pants and positioned his body over the toilet not trusting sitting on the toilet itself out of fear of contracting a "horrible" illness from the women, when he noticed the curious gaze of the ships resident bubblely red head.

Dita said nothing at all, as she continued to stare at the object of her naïve affections with a twinkle in her blue eyes and a smile on her face, totally unaware what her presence was doing to the young man.

Hibiki tried in desperation to contain the embarrassment in his face from showing, in a flash he pulled back up his pants, grasped Dita by the collar of her jacket and hauled her out of the men's restroom. As soon as he opened the door leading out, he dumped Dita on the floor. The female now found herself planted outside of the room as hibiki slammed the door and activated the electronic lock.

Dita turned around and spoke to hibiki through the door.

"But why can't I watch Mr. Alien?" her disappointment was clear to anyone who heard it, like a child asking a parent why they couldn't stay up late or have a treat before a meal. Her face turned into a cute pout as her eyes slightly watered while looking at the door waiting to her hibiki voice on the matter.

"I can't go with someone watching that's why!" He shouted back completely embarrassed and red faced at the mere thought of dita watching him as he did his business. He slide down against the metal door and let out a deep breath he didn't even know he was holding.

Dita looked down and sighed in disappointment. She however did not turn and walk away as the boy from Turok had hoped. Instead she continued to stand outside the door with a determined look on her face as she knocked on the metal door repeatedly while asking to be let in. Hibiki simply sat there and waited for her to get tired of the game and simply leave. Hibiki did not know this himself but he would be forced to wait for a long time.

At the medical bay…

Duero gazed in interest at the images he was viewing.

"Peculiar… this organ doesn't even exist in a man's physiology." He remarked as he further studied the computer displays showing the gestating baby within Ezra.

Ezra looked at the young medic and explained what they were viewing.

"It's called a uterus."

"Hmmm… a reproductive organ… most interesting."

Ezra rested on the bed comfortably, as she began to explain to Duero what else they were looking at.

"I wanted to have a baby, so I decided to carry the seed."

This made the young medic even more curious. "What's the seed?" Duero asked, his curiosity and thirst for knowledge driving him to know everything there was to know about the medical facts of women.

"It's when an ohma donates an egg and has it spliced with the genes of the fahma. Then it is implanted into the fahma's womb to be nurtured and to grow. Where I come from, anyone who wants to be a fahma can be one."

"Hmmm…. So that means I can become one?"Duelo said nonchalantly placing his hand over hers

Duelo asked half serious and half joking around with the soon to be mother not realising or even notice the reaction he caused from the bridge officer. Her face was red and warm as her heart rate was elevated slightly as she felt a pleasant feeling within her stomach she was almost completely sure wasn't from her future daughter.

Finally noticing her reaction Duelo removed his hand from hers and raced to another monitor to try and figure out her newest conditions, thinking they were from the pregnancy. Ezra's hands slowly rose to her cheeks in a vain attempt to contain herself.

Elsewhere…

Parfet was busy holding a contest to find a new name for the fused pirate and male war ship, since everyone essentially agreed that the name Ikazuchi was a rather lousy choice for the ship. All of the crew would contribute and the winner would get a year's supply of food coupons that will be redeemed at the Trapeza. With the Navi-robot, now being called Pyoro, logging in all the suggestions, Parfet would then give the list to the Captain for her to choose the name. One of the suggestions offered was the name 'Nirvana' which was BC's suggestion. Parfet hoped that the captain wouldn't choose that one, it just sounded so she couldn't even describe it se just didn't like it

Due to talking to the Navi bot about the different names they have collected so far Paret wasn't looking where she was going as she collided with what she thought was a wall. As she fell backwards, landing on her backsides her glasses fell off of her face due to the impact sliding a few feet away from her on the ground.

" owy that hurt, thanks for telling me before I walked into that wall Pyoro" she said hoping that robots were able to since sarcasm. she did here a reply which somewhat worried her but she didn't put mush thought into it as she immediately got on all fours to search for her glasses. After a few seconds of looking she found her glasses and placed them back onto her face, and as soon as she regained her vision she relise just what she walked into as well as the reason of the little robot became a mute.

From her know kneeling position on the ground she stared up towards the ships scariest and largest inhabitant the ghost of Sparta, Kratos.

The sudden shock of seeing kratos caused the head engineer to shoot back up standing shuddering an apology for bombing into him

"I-I-I'm s-so s-sorry Mr. kratos," parfet barely got through the apology without passing out due to fear and embarrassment, she fumbled over her words as she stared up at the pale and emotionless face of the Spartan warrior" you know for bumping into you I guess I should really watch were I'm going huh? Heheheheheh I really shouldn't be such a scatter brain while I'm moving huh heheheh" anyone with half a brain would be able to tell that the young glasses wearing engineer was scared out of her mind, the words coming out of her mouth so fast the words seemed to mold together and become almost un audible to any listeners ears.

"It is fine child, you seem to have been more harmed then I was"

"Well you are a bit bigger than me I guess suppose you could take a beating better than me huh" she laughed anther little joke knowing full well it was true, the size difference was striking making parfet feel almost like a small child when standing next to him, and as the memories of kratos killing the monster that threatened to kill the entire crew as well as lifting the entire ship off the mountain become are remembered by the girl the more silly she felt about making such a lame joke.

"O-oh yeah that reminds me would you like to enter our little contest?" Parfet

Contest?."Kratos voice boomed, surely their definition of contest was different from what he would consider a contest. The confusion in his voice caused Parfet to mistake his mood as anger, she flinched as the words left his mouth and met her ears thinking she did something to upset the large intimidating man.

Noticing her reaction, kratos visible appearance softened to convey that he was not in fact mad at the girl, his cheeks and brow relaxed as his posture slumped slightly, his eyes even softened and seemed to become a lighter shade of green that somehow relaxed the young engineer in a way she didn't fully understand.

Sorry I guess you didn't hear about it well it's simple, it's for the name of the ship, you give a suggestion and if the captain picks it you win" she said with a smile staring up at kratos almost begging him to join in.

Looking at the brown haired girl reminded kratos of his daughter in fact since he began this journey he has had moments of seeing flashes of his daughter in nearly every crew member he had come across. With that said it put him in a very uncomfortable frame of mind when he saw Parfet giving him a puppy dog look, knowing full well he would fall to the gaze whenever it was used by either his daughter or wife.

With a sigh signaling his defeat he racked his brain for an I appropriate name for the ship they were currently on.

"Pegasus" was the only word he said as he bypassed the girl and continued down the hallway, leaving the girl and the navi robot alone.

"Hey yeah Pegasus I like that one, you hear that pyro write that one down will you"

Meanwhile… at another section of the ship…

Buzam had just finished inserting a data disk into a message pod, when she was suddenly contacted by the captain via Comm.-link. She hadn't been expecting being contact by the elderly pirate in what she thought was a quite stretch of space, her first thought being they were under attack .

"BC, is everything ready?" Magno asked

Buzam was at a momentary lose of words for a moment, before she regained her composure and answered her captains question "errr, yes captain"

Magno nodded as she looked towards the space pod containing the data that they had obtained from the enemy vessel, and noticed that there happened to be two identical looking pods in the launch ports being worked on by BC. "Why are there two pods?"

"Well… this second one is for Tarak. I thought it would be prudent to warn the men of the threat as well, as they are also the enemy's target."

Magno considered the statement and her first officer for a moment, and agreed with her plan knowing full well that the men of Turok were in just as much danger as their home world.

"Very well." Launch the pods."

BC nodded as she activated the launch ports. Twin cylindrical objects were shot out at the bottom of the ship and sped towards their designated coordinates of the distant planets of Tarak and Mejale. However Before the twin pods traveled a mere 100 miles away from the ship, they were engulfed in a massive explosion. BC as well as the captain looked in surprise as they each viewed the two pods' destruction through the screen, and in an instant later she spotted a quartet of enemy cube fighters came into view in an obvious attack position.

"RED ALERT! ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS!"

Alarms and Red alerts were going off all out throughout the ship, as members of the Dread unit began scrambling to respond to the incoming threats. As the two highest pilots on the chain of command Meia and Jura were already on their way to their own Dreads suited up and prepared for battle when they saw Dita standing near her own ship.

"Dita, what are you waiting for? Board your Dread already and get out there!" Meia cried out as soon as she got close to her apprentice pilot.

Dita faced both her and Jura as she spun in pirouette as she stated why she was still standing around.

"It was Mr. Alien! He got into his partner and flew right out of here! WHOOOSH! He was SO fast!"dita practically screamed her voice filled with affection and awe for the vanguard piolot.

"What? He's out there already!" Jura exclaimed. Shock evidenced within her voice as she looked to meia to gauge her reaction, they had only gotten the call for combat a little less than twenty seconds ago and Hibiki had managed to beat them both here

Unbeknownst to the two senior dread pilots, the young man named Hibiki was in the hanger before the alarm system was going off. He was already stationed in the cockpit of his mecha hiding for dear life from the hyper active red head who wanted to learn all she could about his alien species, thus giving him a head start when it came to preparing for the space battle.

Jura noticed that her blue haired friend and squad was quite pissed off but seemed to hold an almost placid look on her face ,as if controlling her anger and keeping her emotions in check knowing a full outburst will not nothing to help the situation. She knew better however, she's known Meia for years and she knows that if anyone would cross her they are in a world of hurt. Hopefully for Hibiki, the captain would more than likely keep the punishment to a minnum, and won't allow Meia to kill him for blatantly going against his orders, maybe a savage beating would be in order on the other hand.

(by the goddess I think I might never get used to being surrounded by men.)

while this is going on Out in space…

Hibiki was out in space, in the mist of fighting off the enemy cube fighters single handedly, one by one they fell to the modified Vanguard.

Hibiki then went full out toward the last of the enemies with his two massive broad swords slicing them in to two separate pieces as they drifted away from and exploded, Hibikis ego growing with the destruction of each and every enemy mechs.

The monitor in front of his face lit up showing the face of the elderly captain, whose face looked to be a cross between one of contempt and one of mild

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA. See just leave this to me only a man can do moves like that. HAHAHAHA. Hibiki laughed at the captains face, fully aware of his apparent skill with his mech and just how impressive he must of looked to every single member of the crew that watched him destroy their enemies by himself.

Hibiki rocketed back towards the ship with his partner without even waiting to hear the captains response to his statement. He imagined that he was going to receive a heroes welcome when he returned

Back in the hanger

As soon as Hibiki landed his Vanguard he saw the three dread piolits Dita, Jura, and Meia standing in a circle as if they were waiting for him. As soon as Dita saw him enter she immediately place all of her attention on him waving her hand over her head uncontrollably, her glee and happiness shining through the opposite feeling of her two companions. Jura who seemed indifferent towards the whole thing and only seemed to be somewhat happy for the fact that she didn't have to go out and fight herself. Meia seemed to barley control her contempt and anger for the Turok teen, as stared un blinkingly at Hibiki with a stare that promised immense pain towards him.

Hibiki then looked at the three women, assuming the feelings of all three mirrored the feelings of the red head.

"You ladies can take a break, Hibiki the man has taken care of the enemy."

Meia's anger was rising with each word leaving the blue haired teens mouth. The levies of her emotion which had tried so valiantly to keep them in check had finally had enough and broke.

"JUST WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING!" Meia snapped at the Vanguard pilot as he left his robots mecha to joined the three women.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU THINK I WAS DOING I WAS SAVING YOUR BUTTS FROM THE ENEMY WHAT ELSE." came Hibikis aggravated response, does she know what he just did for them?

"You went out there without any authorization!" Meia called out with her anger now somewhat more controlled after her previous emotional slip.

"Without Authorization? I saw an opportunity to help you women and I'm getting all this flack about following your "orders" when you weren't even out there?"

"Your under my jurisdiction as a temporary member of the dread combat unit, as the squad leader my input is directly involved in all planning and all combat movements."

"Who said I had to listen to your input and if I need to remind you I am a part of this crew and if you got a problem with that you can take it up with your captain if you have a problem with how I'm operating to help you damn women" hibiki was starting to get loud, his short fuse already almost set to erupt.

(wow, this one sure has a high temper.) Jura thought to herself as he gazed at Hibiki trying to get into the face of her squad leader, despite being several inches shorter than the woman.

Meia for her part was keeping her cool as best she can with Hibikis face near inches away hers with his chest puffed up and his brow bunched up, as if he was trying his best impression of kratos, to try and back the squad leader back down. Unfortunately for him it didn't seem to work.

Dita relishing the massive amounts of tension in the hanger tried to diffuse the situation, before the two came to blows, knowing that the two wouldn't back down from the other due to pride or the chance to save face in front of her and Jura.

Mr. Alien, Meia we shouldn't be fighting each other, please lets just calm down"

Forget this I don't need this, I'm outta here" Hibiki said briskly as if he was waiting for an excuse to leave without him seeming like he was a wimp. leaving through the sliding doors with Dita following closely behind him as she tried to calm him down.

This left Meia and Jura the lone occupants of the hanger, Jura being slightly entertained by the two antics slowly left the hanger as to not bother Meia in her obviously annoyed and frustrated state. Meia was currently in the frame of mind that asking the captain to through the brat in the brig seemed like the best option for her and the overall crew. She will have to discuss with captain first before making such a rash decedicion. but she would be lying if she said she didn't want the figurative book to be thrown at the teen aged boy.

At the bridge…

"He's a danger to the ship and to the morale of the crew!" Meia said to her Captain emotionlessly despite her feelings of annoyance and slight anger towards the hot headed blue haired vanguard pilot. It was rather obvious that the only thing keeping her barley controlled anger in cheek was out of respect for the elderly captain.

"I take it that you don't approve of the newest addition to our crew?" Magno Vivian asked her Dread squadron leader. she knew full well that the personalities of the two pilots were so radically different from each other and that they would eventually clash with one another, but not even she could imagine it would be this fast.

"That's putting it too mildly" Meia paused as if she was collecting her thoughts "captain. He doesn't follow orders he might have a problem with authority in general, he's absolutely reckless, his rash decisions might get the entire crew killed one day if this goes unchecked, and if I may speak freely captain he is simply infuriating to be around with!" Meia said as she tried to rein in her temper.

"I see. Well… I'll be the first to admit that he is a bit reckless and that attitude of his doesn't quite install confidence . But he's already done us a couple of favors. besides, his skills and the power of that Vanguard are quite helpful assets, considering our current situation."

"If I may be allowed to speck captain" kratos boomed making his presence first known to the occupants of the bridge. His distinctive voice coming seemingly from nowhere surprised and even frightened most if not all of the crew station on duty. Belvedere Amarone nearly jumped out of their seats, as a third bridge bunny nearly fumbled out of her bear costume. Bart who was navigating through space nearly halted and stopped the ship dead in is takes but barely managed to keep his cool. Even the normally un flinching Meia, held her breath as sweet became to form over her brow as she gazed at the ghost of Sparta through the holo monitor, his presence still palpable even when not in direct contact. even the captain straightened herself up right and put forth her attention toward the man.

Magno entertained the notion of how kratos was able to keep his movements so quiet and undetectable despite, as Gosco once said, being the size of a small dread. she often wondered if the crew would evacuate the halls whenever they caught sight of him and it just seemed as if no one knew where he was or going and people were just to intimidated to say anything. She truly did not blame them

Despite being able to cut the tension and fear with a knife whenever kratos walked into a room, Meia got past her moment of awe to voice her displeasure with what she thought the mountain of a man was going to say.

"Captain, he only wishes to keep punishment off his fellow man, I find that his opinion in this matter is purely..." meia was cut of swiftly by the Spartan

"I assumed you were much too smart to bad mouth someone who shares the same opinion as you, silly girl" Kratos said almost emotionless, smirking slightly as he saw the look on the dread leaders face as she relised what his words meant.

"If I may be so bold, the child n question is much too brash in his actions as you already know, since he doesn't seem to follow orders or listen to planes that have been written up he endangers everyone on this ship whenever he goes out to battle."

:You feel strongly about this?" Magno said evenly interested in not only kratos seemingly expert opinion on the matter but also the chance to probe more information out of the stoic pale giant.

"A true warrior worth is measured by the worth of the warriors he serves with, that is the way I was taught and that s a lesson the boy will have to learn before being placed on the front line of combat" said kratos confidently, so sure of his convictions it came out like he was reading it from a history book, more fact then opinion.

Though I truly hate to admit it myself and goddess help us if the boy were to hear this, I feel the boys skill is a priceless asset to this mission" she paused so that her words may be able to sink in.

However, if the both of you really believe that the young man is in fact hampering the Dread teams' performance, and then perhaps he will benefit from a reassignment of duties, what say you kratos any suggestions?"

"it is to my knowledge that this woman Meia is currently the leader of your fighting squads I find it best that she decide what is to be done with the young man's reassignment" boomed the deep voice of the former god as he looked up towards the holo monitor as if to say that whatever meia had in mind as far as punishment should be interesting.

Meia felt a surge of accomplishment as her smirk grew with each word from kratos mouth. Her smirk turned into a full blown smile when she heard him tell the captain that she should be placed in charge of the transfer and she knew the perfect spot, hell maybe he might even learn something from this.

In the Garden…

"I just don't get what the big deal is" Hibiki said to himself as he walked alone throughout the Bio Garden, it had been a few hours since his argument with Meia, and only one since he managed to shack Dita off his trail to allow himself some alone time.

Before he joined the crew of pirates, and Before he had an outlet to show case his skills in combat Hibiki was viewed as less than nothing by his society, his supposed friends, and even himself. he was the lowest of the low, a third class citizen whose sole purpose in life was to work his fingers to the bone at an assembly line. No future and no life outside the factory he was treated as a slave by the owners and by his fellow workers he used his anger and temper as a security blanket, to keep people away before they had the chance to hurt him. in his life the only person who he ever trusted was his Grandpa and even he threw him out left him alone in a world who truly didn't care for people like him. he always told himself he needed no one to be strong, that he was strong despite being alone, because he was alone.

If he would have stayed on his home world his pride and loathing for everyone around him would have gotten him killed sooner rather than later, however since being thrown into this particular situation, with people radically different from the people he had grown up being around had confused him as well as put him on the Defensive for the most part. He inner thoughts telling him that by showing people he was strong, that he was useful then for once he would gain the respect he thought he had the right to have.

"I mean they should be grateful that the great Hibiki is here to protect them, but NOOO, they throw everything Hibiki did back into Hibikis face" Hibiki said of himself clearly speaking in the third person after sighing and letting lose a breath he didn't even know he was holding.

I see we're talking in the third person now are we" a voice came from the darkness.

Because of his upbringing Hibiki had to be as strong as he could be or at least act as strong as he could be so no one would push him around, himself being on the short side already made him an easy target amongst his peer group. Normally he would have screamed at the top of his lungs about him being able to talk however the hell he wanted, this time however was to one of those times.

The voice was so distinctive he would remember the tone the literal power that carried the words it spoke for the rest of his life. it could have been one person and one person only

Kratos stepped out of the shadows as the lights form the light poles illuminated his massive form. All 6 feet 4 inches of his height and all 290 pounds of his pure mass, not only seemed to tower over Hibiki but in a way surround him from all possible corners, making Hibiki feel as not matter where he was Kratos was all around him.

"wh-what are you doing here" Hibikis pride was the only thing that kept him from running away right at this second. Kratos was the first and so far only person Hibiki ever met that truly terrified him. his size, demeanor, attitude, power, he was everything Hibiki wanted himself to be. No one in there right frame of mind would dare mess with him and even if they did he was capable of making them soon regret that decision.

"where's the confidence I usually hear from you boy" his voice boomed making Hibiki seem even smaller then he felt when he started comparing himself to the Spartan.

Confidence, Hibiki lost his strength, his instincts failed after only a few moments in front of Kratos. He was drowning in the sheer presence of the Spartan. his limbs were numb and he couldn't find the strength to move them.

You've seem to lost that power you were bragging about having earlier, Hibiki the man how lucky we are to have such a fierce warrior to protect us from evil" kratos mocked as he took a step closer, causing Hibiki to take a step backwards away from him.

"So you're only strong when you have that Vanguard you use" it was more of a statement then it was a question.

Hibiki eyes darted to his feet his once over flowing confidence deflated to the point of self loathing, Noticing this Kratos seemed to change his tactics. he quickly decreased the distance between them standing directly in front of the younger man. Kratos lowered his massive body until he was standing on one of his knees as his eyes met with Hibikis.

"I can tell you want to be strong and that you truly want to be a true warrior" kratos said, his voice softer then Hibiki thought possible for a man like him, still stern and powerful but somehow gave his inner self the boost it desperately needed.

"you need to learn a few things first before you can even hope to become a true fighter in the eyes of this crew the eyes of me and most importantly the eyes of you" with that he stood from his knee and took a step back to almost size Hibiki up.

a true warriors effectiveness is measured by the warriors he fight alongside with"

"Without this basic fact you put yourself and others in unnecessary danger, with that in mind The captain, Meia, and myself have decide it would be for the best that you be taking off the front line temporarily a given a more supportive base role"

"Now before you go off the handle like I know you are going to do, understand this, this will do you nothing but good in the long run"

Hibiki stared at the man as he turned and left leaving Hibiki to his thoughts. He was pissed off at not being able to fight, he couldn't remember a single time in his life when he was this angry before. Kratos words played over and over again in his mind. If anyone was going to know just what it took to be warrior and to live strong it had to be kratos.

Hibiki thought to himself "_You know maybe it won't be so bad yeah I mean where are they going to put me_"

At the Register…

(THIS is where we'll be working?) Hibiki thought to himself as he stepped in the ship's supply depot center looking like he was out of his element, his eyes were wide and seemingly bulging out of his head and his mouth hung open like a fish, taking desperate breaths as it was taken out of the water.. Everyone in the center's staff were all dressed in matching white and red outfits, almost like waitresses giving the depot more of restaurant feeling and less of a armory.

Gascogne was busy giving her staff the orders for the day, the department head easily distinguishable from the rest due to her height and physique, as well as her less then lavish wardrobe. when she spotted the vanguard pilot she instantly smiled a smile that almost screamed "fresh meat".

"Ah yes! The new arrival! hey Girls, what's our motto?"

"SMILE! SMILE!" every single girl in the room said in complete unison as they faced the young man and simultaneously gave him a friendly wave, officially freaking Hibiki out with their complete unison.

Hibiki looked at the scene with his eyebrow twitching un controllably. (Just what the heck have I gotten myself into this time?)

Welcome, to the team kid, I hope you enjoy your stay as a member of my team" Gasco

Hibki scoffed and refused to meet her eyes, clearly still upset about being transferred but mostly upset about what kratos said to him about not being a real man as well as the fact that he the brash loud mouth he was couldn't and even wouldn't say anything to the monster of a man to refute his claims, not that he even could think of anything to say.

"I guess they were right about that attitude of yours, a shame that that was all gossip"

fine don't say anything to me, I guess I'll just tell that big guy he was right all along about you

That did it Hibikis eyes shot up towards the large woman's face to see if she was telling the truth about knowing what kratos said, he saw no bluff of sense of lies in her eyes or her stance to identify she was being deceitful. that or she had one hell of a poker face.

"You know what fine I concede, you win I'll work with you and your creepy girls. I won't like it but I'll do it" Hibiki said defiantly, he was going to show that bastard how much of a real man he was.

"but I am not I mean am not going to wear that outfit do you hear me I don't cant what you say or what you do to me I am not wearing...'

Five minutes later...

I can't believe I'm wearing this thing" Hibiki said in a defeated tone of voice

Hibiki looked down at himself in shock as he took stock of his new uniform that were worn by every woman on Gascogne's staff. The frilly apron and low skirt looked well on a women's frame and body type Hibiki supposed but on a man and especially if that man was him it wasn't especially pleasing to see or to be in.

who you look pretty good like that, you know if you did decide to live among women, you might just blend in fine" Hibiki was shocked that Gosco was able to mutter such a statement and not burst out laughing, the idea of her having a great poker face was becoming more and more of a possibility by each passing moment.

"Whatever do you think I like wearing this thing?"

Gascogne smiled and tried not to laugh at the looks of anger and embarrassment on the man's face who was now under her supervision and also took stock of their appearance.

"Now that's better. Now you truly look like part of the stagehands."

"Stagehands?" Hibiki said,

Gascogne nodded towards the boy as she decided to explain her role and the role of her girls to the hot headed piolot.

"That's right. It's our job to make certain that all the supply orders or filled… with a smile of course. Don't think that the actors have their own up on the stage." she said hoping her analogy was paying off and was sinking into Hibikis skull.

said teen was still in a deep state of shock and embarrassment over what he was now ordered to wear, when the chief supply officer came up to him. He couldn't resist giving out a growl of annoyance and irritation, but Gascogne shook her head at that.

"You should remember our motto here. Smile, smile!"

Hibki tried to force a smile as he tried to keep his temper in check.

Gascogne smiled and then motioned for him to follow her for his first day of work. He would first be given a tour of the facilities and then be given his first assignment, moping the floors. The entire time Hibiki never stopped his growls of irritation as well as his string of curses.

Elsewhere on the ship…

"Wow! What is all this?" Dita asked as she and her companion the Navi-bot Pyoro explored the other sections of the men's side of the ship. She had already given her suggestion to Parfet that the ship's name be Roswell. Once she did that she went on a little trip to the men's side deeply interested in learning all that she could about her Mr. Alien. The two of them had come across one of the food storage compartments and were now gazing at the massive flood of variously colored nutrition pellets.

"This room is where the men keep their food supplies." The Navi-robot explained to the young redhead. "One of these pellets is good enough for a full three hundred hours worth of labor." the little robot said, almost saying the exact same thing Bart said to him describing the "miracle food substance" that his family was responsible for supplying the military ship.

Dita knelt down and took one of the pellets and began to nibble it. the solid food suddenly exploded into a powder like substance as it entered her mouth. dissolving almost instantly. She grimaced immediately and spat out the pellet as her tongue's taste buds were subjected to the pellet's foul taste .

"Ewwwww! Mr. Alien actually eats this stuff!"Dita said spitting out what little bunches where left in her mouth. shocked why anyone man or woman would willingly chose to eat these disgusting pills.

"Well…." The robot spoke out as it decided to tell the redhead on what it had learned about from the four men on the ship. "From what I've been able to gather, the only one who seems particular on the taste seems to be Bart, the other three don't care for the taste either, but these pellets are all there is to eat on Tarak."

With that little bit of information engraved in her mind, Dita bolted up from her seated position, with the intension of fixing the preserved problem. If this was truly the only thing that Mr. Alien had ever eaten his whole life, then no wonder he was in such a bad mood all the time. She knew just what to do now and then everyone would be happy and get along.

At the Register Depot…

Though he absolutely hated the idea of having to wear a skirt and apron to do work even more annoying than the work he did back home, Hibiki had to admit that Gascogne ran a very effective and efficient operation for a woman anyway. The members of her crew were completely professional, though they kept on offering those somewhat annoying smiles. He felt kind of weird with the sometime overly friendly crew, he wasn't used to the idea of having a work relationship that didn't involve mutual distain for one another, these girls were the polar opposite of what he was used to back home.

The one thing that pissed him off beyond all else however was his job in his new department . He was now a glorified janitor... in a dress.

hibikis anger was at the high notch at this juncture of his treatment, as he had a VERY accurate idea on why Meia had removed him from the combat roster.

(Humph! Now I understand why Meia was so happy when she was given the authority to have me reassigned. She's probably gloating right now)

Gascogne had arrived and spotted the sour look on hibikis face as he leaned his torso against the bucket and mop, so she decided to have a chat with the only male member of her Register staff.

"Well now, it seems that some people don't remember our little motto." she said hopping to get some sort of reaction out the teen other than a grunt or another string of curses

"Hmmm?" Hibiki turned from where he was while scrubbing the Launching Bay relishing he was day dreaming and not paying attention to his surroundings..

"Smile, smile."

Hibiki gave a slightly icy glare as he gave a growl as his only response to the woman. disappointed in the reaction Goscogne sighed knowing full well that the blue haired teens attitude wasn't going to change any time soon at this rate. It was then that Gascogne gestured for him to follow her. She wanted to show him something.

"Don't start thinking that the jobs you were assigned to do aren't as important as destroying the enemy."

The head supply officer said as she and hibiki stood alone in what seemed to be a small projection viewing room of some sort.

"We all have to do our part to help keep the ship running and keep everyone alive. Don't think that we have it easy down here."

"I get it geez, What you do is important I get it you don't have to hammer that into me anymore, now are you gonna tell me why you brought me here." Hibiki said as he faced the supply officer.

Gascogne noted that she had a part of the man's interest, no matter how small and no matter how much he wouldn't admit to her face. She then reached over and pressed a small button.

"Take a look at this."

A holographic image appeared on a screen, which caught the ex-soldiers attention. He saw the women's home-planet of Mejale and what seems to some sort of apartment complex in the residential areas. As the images continued to play, Gascogne began to explain.

the first thought that crossed Hibiki mind was that what he was seeing was the single most gaudy thing he had ever seen in his life, so many bright light, and loud color almost caused sensory overload in his mind.

When he happened to voice his opinion on the fact he was surprised to hear the woman he was alone with laugh at his observation and calmly say that she couldn't agree with him more.

"This is our home planet of Mejale. On the outside, it seems to be a rather beautiful and peaceful world. However, appearances are very deceiving. The people of Mejale are more concerned with their appearances than on practicality. They constantly waste precious energy and resources on very trivial pursuits, like who has the better garden. Often, these personal contests have gotten in the way of the more important things and what is needed to be done. One time, there was a massive power consumption and as a result… one of the residential units had to be shut down."

Hibiki nodded with disgust on his face as he watched the image of a housing complex became dark as it was stripped of power. Gascogne continued further with her explanations.

"Our captain had lost her home as a result of what had happened and that was when she started this pirate gig. It was the perfect solution for those who had nowhere to go so we followed her and it's been that way ever since. In piracy, there was no real difference between males and females. Everyone had to work hard, but everyone shared in the rewards. Don't get the idea that certain people reaped the rewards while others did all the work."

Hibiki said nothing, but he had a good idea where the head supplier's conversation was hinting at. Hibiki didn't want to acknowledge the head supply officer views for a moment, but the more he thought about it the more since they made to him. No person should be forced out of his or her own home, just because of the foolishness of one's neighbors. He could understand her view, he was always the scapegoat for some of the other guys of his factory back on Turok, always pinning the blame on him whenever something bad happened even when they knew who really did it.

"You know, you should be considering yourself lucky. If it had been the Mejale military that had attacked the men that time, then you would have been dead long before you could have even said mercy." Gosco said thinking about how her planets special forces would have done when in combat with the men on board the male Flag ship

Hibiki thought about it, flashes of bodies of cadets littering the floor as the women showed no mercy towards anyone they found.

"I wonder what Kratos would have done if he felt you posed any sort of threat to him?" Hibiki said quietly, thinking about what the man did to that great beast and how normal military would be able to combat that type of power

Gascogne gazed at Hibiki as she thought about it for a moment. She had to agree her maybe it was for the best that it was the pirates who hijacked the vessel, no doubt the amount of bloodshed spilled on that day would have been something akin to a blood bath. At this point she wouldn't be shocked by the prospect of Kratos fighting off the entire Mejale military by himself.

"Yes, I highly doubt someone like kratos would go done because of a shot with a laser"

"Yeah I know." Hibiki replied with a laugh imagining the looks on the faces of those unfortunate soldiers as they discovered exactly what a man like kratos was capable off doing , with that hibiki exited the room preparing to finish his work for the day.

Gascogne smiled a bit as she watched the young man leave. Thinking to herself how she finally got through that thick head of his and got him to somewhat open up to her.

A week after Hibiki joined the Register System…

"So Hibiki I got to ask you something" Gosco asked her subordinate, as she watched him finish up the last of his assignment of the day.

Over the Corse of the past week, Hibiki and Gosco got a bit closer in heir budding relationship, in terms of Hibiki know answering questions with actual words instead of angry and frustrated growls or annoyed grunts, so Gosco felt they were making progress.

"Yeah what is it" He was still as brash as ever, but when I came right down to it Hibiki showed and treated the Supply manager with the respect he knew she deserved.

"You and Kratos seem pretty close so I was just wondering if you knew what made a guy like that tick" Goscogne said honestly at her wits end about the pale skin man.

From the start of the journey, it seemed as if Kratos was one nearly everyone's mind. From his strange and sudden arrival onto the fused ship to the man's almost barbaric looking appearance to his frightening presence and fighting ability has been the source of much heated debate amongst the entire crew.

The first couple of days he became something of a boogieman to a good portion of the crew especially the younger ones who had never seen a man before, they created a crazy notion that most of the Turok military was just like kratos, That idea was quickly extinguished by the captain before her entire fleet of fearsome pirates were reduced to nothing more than a paranoid group of children to scared to run into a platoon of Kratos to even bother attacking Turok ships.

As days went on people seemed to calm down around the man, even though he happened to scare the wits out of anyone who talked to him or saw him if he didn't make a conscious decision to put effort into not making one run away from him.

He liked his privacy and usually kept to himself most of the time, the times where he did interact with the rest of the crew he seemed almost parental in a way , Which just seemed strange for a guy like him to be considered that considering it was a huge shock to discover that a man in general could even be remotely Parental.

She would hear stories of how the girls from every department of the crew from engineering, to the dread squad, to even her Register who had gone to talk with the man overcoming their fear of him in the process only to discover that he reminded them of at least one of their parents with the way he treated them.

He seemed reluctant at the start brushing them off to the side or even straight up ignoring them, but after awhile he allowed a few of them to get close and this only encouraged more and more of the crew to join in.

Like she was with Hibiki it seemed as If Dita was his biggest fan In that regards. almost every day when she isn't chasing Hibiki around trying to get him to try one of her boxed lunches she made especially for him ( to which he called poison and ran for his life) she seemed to be at Kratos side with a number of other crew members begging for the large man to them stories of his past adventure and life before he came on the ship.

Despite some weak protest at the start kratos would always tell anyone willing to listen, which happened to anyone within ear shot of him which was allot of people, stories that would engross all of it listeners. Tales of his supposed past adventures enthralled all who heard them, their imaginations running wild with the detail descriptions of beasts and creature they could never have seen in the real world. as well as tales of valor and heroism.

The sordid lives of the Olympian Gods, their servants and children among the mortals, and even the Titans played out like the soup operas the crew were used to watching back on their home world.

There were dozens of incredible stories of mighty heroes and horrible monstrosities, that pumped their adrenaline up and made them beg for more. Many of them were especially moved to tears by the tragic tale of Orpheus and his wife Eurydice. However anyone could tell you the most popular story Kratos ever told was the unshakeable bravery of the 300 Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae. He must of repeated that story at least twice a day since the crew had agreed upon that he was one of their new favorite group activities.

"Why would you think I'd know that?"

I don't know you seem kind of close aren't you" Goscogne said, getting confused about Hibikis answer thinking that being some of the only men on the entire ship, they would at least try and get to know each other

"Yeah right" hibiki spat out, sarcasm dripping off of each word

"that guys a complete psycho, always watching me, talking down to me, he's always treating me like I'm just some kid" Hibiki finished with a huff.

"Uhh you are a kid" Gosco said after a pause, she was taken aback by Hibikis sudden explosion of dialogue

"NO I'M NOT!, seriously the next time someone calls me a kid I swear I'm gonna.." Hibiki didn't finish his pseudo threat because he was cut off from a voice coming from the direction of the sliding door

"What is the child going on about now?" kratos said walking towards the two, girls parting a pathways for him to walk through all the while greeting him with genuine kindness and affection, two things kratos was still getting used to.

Noticing no response from the usually load mouth pilot kratos decided that embarrassing him more would hopefully cause some reaction to jolt him from his moment of complete and utter mental shutdown "I'm sorry did I break your concentration Boy" kratos said looking at the brash teen stammering and unable to form a complete sentence

"Oh you were finished, good you can leave now the adults have to talk" kratos said seeing no immediate change from Hibiki, he decided to send the brat away so that he can get what he needed to do out of the way.

"I'm almost afraid to ask but, can you please just humor me and tell me you were forced to wear that"

"Oh don't worry he went kicking and screaming" Gosco said almost trying not to outright laugh at the face hibiki had on when kratos asked the question.

"Good to be thankful for small miracles I suppose" he said as he watched Hibiki face light up bright red and walk off to finish his work all while muttering his immense hatred for the outfit he was wearing as well as the fact that no one seemed to care that Kratos himself was wearing a skirt.

when he knew hibiki was out of ear shot he turned towards Goscogne "So how is the brat doing under your supervision" Kratos asked curious on the effect if any that the change of seanaery had on the boys work ethic and over all attitude.

"he's been getting better, working better with others and all that, he's even calming down a bit, but you'd have to pay really close attention for that little piece" Goscogne said, smelling at the last part as Hibiki had started growing on the veteran pirate more then she originally though he would.

"Not too much I hope, that's part of his charm" a smooth voice called out from the sliding door, Both Kratos and Gosco turned around to find The ships new resident Doctor Duello calmly walking towards them.

"Hello Doctor, not that I'm complaining or an thing but what are you doing here?" Gosco greeted the young man

"I got a message saying a member of the Register was having some troubles so I ran right down "Duello said as he began to walked towards a group of women circling around another woman who was fanning her to keep cool as she sat on chair.

As he neared them the group parted to allow Duello excess to the Feverish woman, all the while greeting him and telling him how well he looked today.

Looking at the situation unfold Gosco began looking back and forth between all corners of her department relishing that work had seemed to slow to a crawl the second the good doctor had entered the room, in fact all of her girls were either in that group watching over the doctor or just simply watching from a distance too shy to be near the man.

She turned to look at two of her workers who seemed to be standing near the communication panel, obviously the ones who called the doctor down to "help" their friend. While both of them were off looking at the doctor do his thing, they seemed to still have the since of thought to actually bump each other's fist

Gosco laughed at the whole situation and the actions of her entire department, whole could find any reason In her to disagree with their actions.

"You seem to be a regular Adonis boy, might want to give the other two some advice in that department one day" Kratos said amazed at the sight before him, as I Aphrodite herself blessed the young man at birth

"I can't say I know for sure what you are talking about" Duello answers truthfully as he checked the heart rate of the girl he was currently kneeling in front of.

"If you need someone to tell you then it might be best you don't know" Kratos said to himself more than the doctor.

Duello didn't respond, his primary attention on nursing the sick woman back to health as her friends looked on in morbid concern watching his every movement.

Duello hated not knowing about something, it was as if there was an immense conspiracy going on through the ship about alienating then men from this information because neither Hibiki nor Bart seemed to grasp the concept when he Relayed his findings, And it comes to his attention that Kratos is also in the fold.

The Quest for knowledge always seemed to drive Duello to push himself forward in life he truly wanted and needed to know everything about everything, and women weren't any different in that department.

With every probe he conducted about their thought processes as well as their emotions they've seem to instinctly have some sort of defense mechanism that Duello has been taking notes on. His knowledge growing within each passing day. he now felt that he has hit wall, Whenever he got close to any of the women, their faces would gain a reddish hue, their hearts began to beat faster, eyes would water, they would lightly touch him as if to gauge his own reactions, as well as effecting their movements Which tended to distract his eyes.

It seems after all this time The women had caught on to his experiments and viewings and their defense mechanism have increased in , as if they instinct know what he was trying to do.

Duello thoughts were derailed however when he overheard a chorus of gasps and what he thought sounded like laughter coming all around him, he noticed the girl he was examining had passed out, from what he hypnotized was due to the heat stroke steaming from the fever.

His job as a doctor came before his curiosity, he had a job to do and he had to put all his power into "helping" the young woman. While checking her vitals he paid no mind to the multitude of women all around him with hearts in their eyes practically squealing at his every move.

Later that Day...

WAAAABOOOOOOM!

"Enemy attack!"

Magno nodded as she got confirmation from both Belvedere and Amarone, as she and her bridge crew prepared for the latest assault of the enemy. All throughout the ship, crewmembers rushed to their assigned posts, as the Dread pilots rushed to their waiting fighters. In a full thirty seconds squadrons of Dreads were now in front of the ship ready to engage the enemy. After the many previous encounters, Meia was confident that she and her comrades would be able to handle this new threat without the help of the males, namely Hibiki and his Van dread.

The enemy group comprised of at least several dozen Cube Fighters, two other vessels which acted as a Cube Fighter factory, that they tagged as Seed Ships were to each side of the group. A third unknown type was in the middle of the enemy group, The very large machine seemed to be a massive sphere which comprised of globes on its surface. The alien forces maintained a fixed distance in front of the pirates, as if they were almost daring the women to make the first move in this little encounter.

On the command bridge, Magno ordered Bart to direct the ship in some evasive maneuvers, which the helmsman did without any hesitation, (his specialty is running away after all). However, for every maneuver the ship would attempt, the alien forces countered effectively, keeping the distance between them and the pirates in deadlock. After several more attempts that were easily countered, the pirates halted and decided to face off with their alien enemies.

The Register…

"Why are we running from these wimps?. What are those women doing? ATTACK ALREADY!" Hibiki said sounding like he was getting ready to start ripping his hair out due to frustration as he watched the situation unfold along with the rest of the pirates via monitors.

Kratos had heard Hibiki from the other side of the room and walked over to him.

" I'm going to tell you something useful never rush into battle without analyzing your enemy first. Once you've analyzed the enemy wait for them to attack first. I want you to so remember that because I hate repeating myself, got it brat."

Hibiki seemed to obey Kratos words, as he instead of yelling at the screen, he shut his mouth and paid closer attention to what was happening on the screen. Even though he could quite know what the enemy was planning, his instincts were screaming at him that something big was going to happen"

"I've got a REALLY bad feeling about this."

Kratos silently agreed with the teens sentiment as he viewed the battle via the monitors, Since the battle had begun kratos had been studying the weapon, measuring its strengths and weaknesses, knowing full well with the way the dreads have been fighting there was no way they would be able to defeat the machine.

Though he could tell, that in the next few moments, that things were going to get even worse for the front line…

In that sudden instant, the enemy attacked…

Meia immediately placed the Dread squadrons into the fray. The agile pirate fighters darted in and out of the mess, blowing up a small number of the Cube Fighters to kingdom come while trying in vain to engage the alien's main attack ship. However the strange craft was easily evading the first wave of dread ships with speed that contradicted its massive size. Then the globes covering its surface began to rotate and extend out massive, jagged purple tendrils turning at an incredible speed turning the massive razor sharp spikes into a complete weapon of mass destruction, All the while making the machine look like a…

"Sea urchin? How disgusting!" Jura commented as she directed her Dread into a strafing pattern attack against the new alien ship. She was immediately followed by her best friend Barnette who also launched her own barrage of missiles against the target. However, the spines immediately became jagged and started rotating even faster. The missiles fired by Barnette were immediately brushed aside by the spines leaving the main body unharmed, as the missiles exploded harmlessly into space.

"No good! We can't get close enough to it for a direct shot!" Barnette called out as she moved her Dread away from the battle zone to regroup with Jura.

Then the spines became straight and were suddenly launched outward like over-sized high velocity darts. A few of the Dreads were caught unaware by the sudden attack, getting hit and placed out of action. Meia thought that now was their chance as she directed the still operational Dreads to immediately attack. However, the machine rapidly extended more spines and began spinning them again, causing the next barrage of missiles to totally miss and explode without any effect.

"Damn!" Meia swore as she evaded the barrage of fire from a few Cube Fighters that rushed in to protect their main system of attack. But it didn't help matters when those Seed Ships were spewing out periodically more Cube Fighters.

"Let's ask Mr. Alien to come and help!" Dita called in her communicator as she also managed to evade the incoming barrage from her own pursuers.

"NO! WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT RELYING ON OTHERS?"

"But he's a good alien, and he can really help us out right now!" Dita countered as she dodged more shots from the enemy.

"WE DON'T NEED THERE HELP! THERE MEN AND OUR ENEMY! WE CAN HANDLE THIS ON OUR OWN!"

Meia gritted her teeth as she directed her fighter teams once more.

(I WON'T ask for anyone's help! Namely from that MAN!) Meia mentally said, her pride not allowing herself to admit not even to herself that she needed help

Though Meia was confident of her skills and abilities and that of her fellow Dread pilots. She wasn't aware that she was breaking one of the most important rules of the battle field ,

_Ones better judgment must overcome ones pride in order to achieve victory_

Back at the Register…

Hibiki shook his head in disgust as the fight continued. "This really doesn't look good."

Gascogne nodded in agreement as well as she watched the battle through her tactical monitors. With the Cube Fighters running interference and defense, and the Dreads being unable to attack the new alien attack ship due to its defenses, it seemed that the pirates were now fighting a one-sided battle with them at the losing side. She checked her monitors again and noted that several of the Dreads were knocked out of the action and returned to the hanger for some quick maintenance. It wouldn't be long until the enemy would make their assault on the ship itself.

"Those Dreads aren't going to last much longer. Not to mention the fact that the current battle tactics they're using are now useless." Kratos said as crossed his massive arms over his chest, his voice calm as if he were talking about the weather

"Oh? What would you suggest then?" Gascoigne asked as she gazed at the Spartan, curious on just what the Spartan knew about the enemy

The Veteran warrior simply pointed at the urchin like vessel of the aliens on the monitor. "That new ship was designed specifically to combat those Dreads. The spines were designed for at least three different functions. The first being to act as a form of defense, with the spines being jagged and in fast rotation and considering the flow of energy in them, they then would deflect the incoming barrage of missiles and other projectiles, as they now know that the Dreads are only effective on long and medium range attacks. The second is for a ranged attack, the design is to utilize extreme speed, they are designed to get in and get out before you even noticed what happened, they're very hard to dodge, even more so with those Cube-Fighters around, and to make things even more hazardous, there's two of those Seed Ships causing interference. The last will probably to act as melee weapons, as soon as they break through the Dreads' ranks, the aliens will use their main ship to attack us like it was launched from a catapult."

"It's an interesting strategy but..."

"But what..." Gosco said almost completely enthralled listening to kratos speck

"its greatest strength makes it most crippling weakness all the more visible, its speed is a result of its lack of armor, it leaves itself open for attack every single time it attacks"

Kratos then pointed at the image of the urchin ship as it once again fires it's spines at the formations of the Dreads. He then pointed out the now spineless ship.

"The ship can be destroyed only when the spines are out of the way, and not from long range as that would give it the needed time to regenerate its spines. All you need is one good shot from up close to kill it" He said

Gascoigne nodded in amazement at kratos as he had already discovered the weakness of the current attackers. "Getting up close with that ship, with all those fighters guarding it and those spines shooting out? Sounds real risky."

"The Hardest way is almost always the best way of doing things"

As soon as the words left his lips the ground began to rumble as the ship was impacted by enemy projectile, the impact sending everyone in the registry hurdling to the ground, everyone except kratos as he still stood with his arms folded watching the monitor.

As everyone was lifting themselves up off the ground, kratos attention was placed solely on the monitor in front of him with the captain face shining brightly at him.

"Captain" kratos says passively, having a feeling as to why the captain image was in front of him

"Kratos we seem to have a problem" the captain, no humor in her usually friendly voice, she was all business right now

"Go on"

"The tremor I'm sure you just felt, was caused by an enemy vessel colliding with the ship, our radar sensor have located the breach and we've sealed the door however it seems that the enemy is in the ship"

"Where" kratos said already knowing where the captain was going with this, good it's been a while since he a had a nice work out with living targets.

"The motion sensors located unknown movement within a spare hanger on a bottom section of the ship, we've managed to look the hatches for the time being but we don't know how long the door will last, and we don't think our security forces are up to the task"

"Consider it down" Kratos said his voice dripping with malice as he smiled a smile that would have sent the most hardened criminal weeping to his mother like he was a child.

Kratos turned away from the screen as he walked his way out of the room, As he past Gosco he stopped and looked at her from the corner of his eye and said in a in as quiet as possible for kratos" I expect the problem with the outside battle to be finished by the time I get back here" with that he left through the sliding door intending to show the errors of the enemy ground forces ways.

As she watched his retreating form, Goscogne smiled knowing full well what he wanted her to do, and she could help but agree with his sentiments.

"Now where did Hibiki go?"

Space, outside the battle

The Dreki, Gascogne's supply ship, detached from the main ship and made its way to the battle zone. The ship resembled a deep gray metallic ladybug and was protected by high-density armor plate and had several grappling arms located on the undersides. As four Dreads came in to be rearmed and refueled, she then extended the arms and then grabbed the fighters bringing them closer so that the ordered weapons could be loaded on the ships.

On the main bridge of the Dreki, Gascogne sat with Hibiki and they each watched the procedures.

"Okay, we're going to get all this done in forty seconds, tops. Let's do this all in one go."

Hibiki nodded they efficiently and systematically loaded the Dreads with their newly ordered ordinance of missiles and power packs. The head supplier nodded in satisfaction as she watched the Vanguard pilot's amazingly flawless efficiency, The somewhat haggard look on his face showed that Hibiki took his job seriously as he pumped the orders and fitted the ships as fast as he humanly could.

In a little less than a minute, the Dreads were now ready to go into battle once again, With all of the pilots itching to go back to the fight to get back at the enemies .

"I'm so full!" Data called out happily.

"Give them Hell, girls." Gascogne said as they launched away from the Dreki.

As Hibiki watched the Dreads re enter the battle, he gave a sigh. boredom taking its toll on him, he needed to get out there to help, he just couldn't stand simply being on the sidelines . He spoke his opinion to Gosco. "Not that I'm saying that being a stagehand isn't a good job or anything, but we all need to change tactics soon. Unless the Dreads can take out that urchin vessel before it can make more spines, then it won't matter just how many times they shoot at it all and how many times they reload."

Gascogne nodded. "I couldn't agree more. However, the reloaded fighters can buy us some extra time."

"What are you getting at?" he asked.

Gascogne gestured to the display. "That's the reason why we brought this along with us."

It was at this time Hibiki noticed that there was one last object in the cargo bay. Hibiki looked at the screen confused with why Goscogne didn't deliver it yet . "Hey, you still got one more delivery to make."

"That's correct." She then accessed cargo manifest. "It's your vanguard I had some of the girls from the register load it in before we left. Now go do what kratos said to do and send these bastards back where they came from."

For a split second, Hibiki just stood there not knowing what to say at the moment, tied up between the excitement of the situation and the emotions he was feeling

"What are you doing Hibiki come on and lets go you don't have a second to waste."

"All right about time. I can't wait to go out there and kick some ass." Hibiki said, getting himself pumped up as he began a mad dash down the hall but seemed to stop abruptly, turning around to face the head supplier as she continued flying her transport ship.

"Thanks… Ms. Gasco." Hibiki yelled out as he ran for the cargo bay as fast as his legs could take him.

"It's Gascogne!"She smirked as she shouted backwards knowing full well he was already getting ready and didn't hear her. happy that for the first time he referred to her by name, even if he messed it up

Deep inside the ship

Kratos walked alone down the empty staircase as the sound of crashes and the ship rocking back and forth filled his ears as he descended the stairs. After years of fighting and war He was prepared to face anything.

He followed the directions given to him by the captain perfectly and he soon found himself in view of the spare hanger. As he neared the thick metal door, Kratos noticed a load banging emanated from the other side of the door, the rhythm as well as the volume of the blows told him it was more than one trying to get through the massive door as well as it no way being a member of the pirate crew.

Thinking it was better to act than to stand around waiting for them to get through, Kratos jumped into the fray. With a mighty push kick he broke the massive 15 foot tall metal door off its hinges with enough force to send the hunk of metal flying back impacting the wall with a dull loud thud instantly killing who ever or whatever was trying to get through the door.

As Kratos stepped through he door into the massive hanger he came face to face with the being the captain sent to destroy.

The creatures seemed to be somewhat human like ,standing on two legs with two top limbs that seemed to be able to manipulate like hands and arms. It appeared to have three eyes in a triangle formation as well as what could be considered a mouth, as the majority of its face, except the eyes, was covered in pseudo-organic metal, that seemed to be crimson hued grey in color, the same metal alloy seemed to cover not just face, but the upper and lower chest regions with small ridge-like plates on the abdomen and the fore-arms as well as going along with the sides of the hips and the lower legs with what looked to gauntlets going up the majority of its arms ending right above its elbows. The rest appeared to have exposed flesh which was in a deep red color. each one of these creatures were large ,standing just over seven feet tall each and by the ways the stood and moved around looked to be in the 500 pound range

With a fluid motion, he whirled his twin blades over his head. The humming sound the blades made as they became unsheathed being the last things many living thing heard before they stopped being living things, the bluish Aura the blades gave off shined like sapphires in the bright lights over his head. Then with power no other human could match, Kratos brought them down directly over a group of three of the "creatures" slicing the middle directly down the middle and as the blades connected with the ground a pillar of darkish blue fire erupted out of nowhere from the ground engulfing the other enemies with a searing fire that caused them to howl in pain as their metal armor sizzled and melted onto what kratos assumed was flesh.

His blades returned to his hands as he then charged the group all the while creating a whirlwind of metal, cutting anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its path into ribbons. Metallic limbs and other body parts falling off and through against walls creating a Symphony of destruction with every crash and bang.

The impact of some blows sending some of the creatures flying and crashing them into the metal crates littering the floor, sometimes denting the crates while snapping the creatures spins like trigs, other times the blows sent them flying threw the crates only for them to land head first into the solid wall popping their heads like grapes and breaking their necks in one powerful blow.

As Kratos dodged a laser that was aimed for his head he rolled towards of his opponents catching him with a powerful uppercut, a sickening crack audible as soon as the fist connected, In the same fluid movement Kratos then grabbed the same creatures body and began using it as a make shift battering ram. Charging into a group of them knocking all he collided into on the ground while stomping them to death when they tried to get up. Kratos stopped abruptly and with his hands placed firmly on the creatures neck and lower torso, he pulled and literally tore the hapless beast to two separate pieces dropping each piece on the ground like pieces of trash.

grabbing his blades again he thrust one into the chest of another who unwisely ran straight at him, gutting him in the process the blow from the impact lifting the creature off its feet into the air. As It began to return to the ground, Kratos removed the blade and threw it behind him, effectively sticking perfectly between the eyes of another enemy who tried to attack him from behind.

With the blade still embedded in its skull, the chains pulled the now dead opponent to kratos. With the momentum of the chains returning to kratos lifted and threw the corpse over handed like a foot ball at another creature, sandwiching it between the wall and its fallen comrade killing it instantly.

With both blades in hand Kratos seemed to stalk the remaining creature killing them off one by one like a serial killer in a slasher movie.

One of the creatures left hand began to glow as a wicked metal blade erupted from the top of it wrist. the blade looked to three feet long and six inches across with a wicked curve that looked like it was designed to do nothing except slice flesh and hack limbs off.

The beast shot out in a mad dash aiming to take off Kratos's head with a single slash. It was a lightning-fast blow, almost invisible to the naked eye, one that was almost impossible to block or dodge, but Kratos had faced beings far faster than this monstrosity. With a savage swing of his blade, he struck the creatures blade, shattering it as if it was made of glass. the power placed into the blow was enough to take the beasts arm out of it sockets and launch it a few feet into the air. Seizing the opportunity Kratos through his blades up into the air both of them penetrating the flesh of the beast and jumped with all his might whilst pulling the creature back towards him catching the creature with a tackle that was strong enough to break every single one of its ribs, some of the stray buts sticking out of its flesh, visible for anyone to see.

Kratos turned his body, away from the beast as it slowly bled out, towards the last of the creatures who all seemed be group together as if they planned on ganging up on him at the same time a s a last resort. With his blades in his hands he crouched down and growled at his opponents sounding almost like a promise to what was to come next.

With one powerful thrust Kratos threw his blades up into the air directly above the enemies, with another powerful pull he brought down both blades on the group. The blades seemed to miss every single creature, but the force the blades carried impacted the ground it created a massive crater large, the force of the blow was powerful enough to instantly kill every single enemy except for one. The creature closest to the side managed to escape the direct blow but was still thrown against the wall due to the sheer force of the attack.

the last remaining creature laid leaning against the wall battered and beaten, sputtering and coughing up liquid as it struggled to regain its bearings. He tried to regain his footing, but fell back down as his legs seemed to give out from under him. Sheathing his blades, Kratos calmly walked over to him wondering if he should drag this out longer then already has or put this thing out of its misery. Seeing Kratos coming after it, the creature deployed the same blade from its wrist that kratos saw before and made a stab at Kratos chest. Contemptuously, Kratos caught the blade in his bare hand and gave a moderate squeeze bending the metal as if it were a loose piece a paper getting bunched into a ball to be thrown out.

Deciding he found the answer to his little problem he seized the enemy by the throat in a powerful grip, His fingers leaving distinctive marks in the metal. He then rammed his forehead into the things face and felt it break under the strain. The enemy struggled to free himself, batting kratos with its arms but Kratos seemed to ignore the blows and held him firm. Again and again, Kratos slammed his head into the beasts skull. Soon the struggling stopped as the body in kratos hand went limp and cold. Without so much as a sound kratos through the beast to the ground

Overlooking his work Kratos turned towards the exit intent on seeing just what Hibiki would do in his own battle.

In Space

"Hey it's that guy" Jura said as she spotted a new machine enter into the fray of the battle.

"It's Mr. Alien and his partner!" Dita cheered as she spotted the vanguard pilot, thankful for the Calvary arriving in the nick of time.

On her own Dread, Meia gritted her teeth in anger. (NO! It can't be HIM!)

Before Meia could tell Dita to stay away from Hibiki the two had already began maneuvering towards each other to try and combine to hopefully change the tides of the battle

(There's no way I'm going to let a man out show or beat me.) Meia then continued the battle.

The gigantic urchin vessel however seemed to understand what the Blond-haired pilot had in mind. It responded by unleashing a slightly faster barrage of spines, intent of impaling, Dita, Jura and the other Dread fighters. Meia had suddenly appeared and her Dread took most of the damage, while saving the others.

"Dita, watch out!"

While Meia's Dread took the hits, sending itself hurdling to the side, though not badly damaged as she knocked Ditas dread to safety, but at the same time sending Hibiki off course. As if by Destiny or by pure coincidence, the Vanguard and the Dread were in close proximity to one another as both individual pilots voiced out their same desire to defeat their foe.

"There's no way…" Meia shouted out.

"… I am going to let that machine beat me!" Hibiki declared in a fierce voice.

It was then that the same process that caused Hibiki's vanguard to merge with Ditas Dread went into effect again with Meia substituting the bubbly red head, as both of the machines turned into a new force of power. Meia's Dread seemed to swallow up the vanguard and began to shift its own form around. The entire craft flipped itself over As twin appendages shot out parael to each other forming into massive talons similar to those found on a Bird of prey like a hawk or eagle. The front of the vessel then extended further and took the form of a serpentine head with tusks on each side. As its wings then expanded to somehow resemble the wings of a massive predatory bird. It hovered in space, ready to wage a bloody encounter with its foes like a Mythical Dragon ready to defend it territory.

"What!" Dita said in shock as she looked at the new machine that had been born with the fusing of Mr. Alien and her leader Meia's own Dread.

"Did you see that?" Barnette called out as she flew alongside her partner Jura.

"It's SO cool, that means I can make magnificent machine with that man just like the other two" Jura declared with a awe filled expression as she eyed Meia's fighter that now resembled a massive Dragon-style mecha with literal stars in her eyes..

On the pirate vessel, the bridge crew along with Magno and BC were also in awe as well, along with nearly everyone else onboard watching the radical transformation.

"That guy's got a ton of tricks up his sleeve." Bart said as he gazed at the new mecha.

Inside the cockpit of the new fighter…

both Hibiki and Meia were already beginning to recover from the fusion of her Dread with his Vanguard, still not aware of the other. When Hibikis back collided with Meia's chest, They both froze and turned around when they saw one another, they were in complete shock for a few moments, then the yelling started.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE!" Meia cried out in anger and embarrassment as she found herself in a rather undignified position. The cockpit of their own Vandread had her sitting in a reclining position, with Cloud out in front in a hunched over position.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SHOUTING ABOUT NOW…!" Hibiki shouted back as he found himself in a rather embarrassing situation once again, more annoyed then mad about getting screamed in the ear by Meia.

"I NEVER ASKED FOR YOUR HELP, SO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" Meia shouted as she tried to force Hibiki out of the cockpit, as her body seemed to tingle slightly from his proximity.

"FOR YOUR INFORMATION, I DIDN'T WANT TO EVEN BE HERE! SO QUIT PUSHING ALREADY!" Hibiki said pushing himself back to keep himself being squished against the control panel.

At that moment their little awkward verbal sparring match was cut short when the Vandread shuddered from the impact as the alien ship outside attacked it. Despite feeling mad and uncomfortable over the whole situation Hibiki was able to focus himself to the threat at hand and grabbed a set of control systems in front of him. The Vandread came to life as he began accessing the systems of the massive machine as he then glared at his unexpected and reluctant co-pilot.

"As much as I want to yell at you a bit more, we don't have the time right now, so work with me here and we can go back to hating each other afterwards!"

Meia gritted her teeth but slowly nodded in agreement as she went to work on the foot pedals and the controls on either side of her chair.

The Vandread responded well as it darted with unbelievable speed after the enemy vessel with an acceleration rate that made the other nimble Dreads look like turtles with bum legs.

"That kind of acceleration is totally impossible!" Barnette declared as her sensors couldn't determine the exact speed that Meia's new machine was doing.

"Meia is SO lucky! I hope my Van dread can move as fast as hers!" Jura said as she eyed Meia's machine wistfully like a child who saw a new toy she really, really wanted.

"Mr. Alien!" Dita chimed out as she watched the show, smiling at the amazing powers she always knew Mr. Alien had.

Vandread Meia ran rings around the urchin ship almost as if it were standing still and the giant urchin vessel tried in desperation to hit its unbelievably nimble target with every spine it could fire. However, the machine's barrage totally missed its intended mark as it would flash in and out of viewpoint due to its insane amount of speed, light itself not being able to catch up to it in time to be able to show it's movements. Suddenly it vanished again but stayed unseen longer than it did the last few times. Every sensory function on board the urchin was computing at its maximum efficiency to find the Van dread, suddenly it reappeared once again behind vessel with the intentions of finishing the fight.

Inside the cockpit of the Vandread, both Cloud and Meia voiced out their mutual desire for victory as they planned on delivering the finishing blow.

"This is just…" Hibiki cried out, his voice filled with determination.

"… What I've been waiting for!" Meia declared as well in the same tone of voice.

It was then that Vandread Meia fed its massive power to the machine's main systems. The entire craft was bathed in a bluish-white light of immense power as it dashed in like a comet.

The enemy craft was skewered right through the center as the Van dread rammed straight through it like a bat out of hell. A moment later as the Vandread ran through it and out it's eye, it exploded into massive fragments and smaller spheres were scattered all over the place. raining debris all over.

The battle ended with the pirate crew of the unnamed ship victorious.

Inside the now dormant Van dread

Meia and Hibiki were to put it simply completely and utterly exhausted.

"Well! Now that was… fun lets never do that again." Hibiki commented as he leaned on the console in front of him panting due to the immense strain the attack placed on his body, as the adrenaline in his body decreased to its normal levels, he began to feel all the pain and wearyness his body was feeling.

"I…never thought we'd agree on the same thing." Meia said as she also tried to regain her breath, and then added. "Now do you see? You can't just win every battle with just your Vanguards."

Hibiki shot a tired glare "And I suppose you were doing better with only your Dreads?"

Meia didn't answer that question as Cloud had raised a good point. How could she have been hypocritical to think they didn't need the Vanguards to survive their enemies, when she condemned Hibiki for his previous views on the dreads.

But before Meia could say something the Vandread split apart separating the two prideful pilots from each other. As soon as he saw a chance to get away hibiki took it to tired and to emotionally and physically exhausted to do anything else, he barley had any energy left to rocket his mecha back to the ship

(That man is…weird) she said to herself before following him as she returned to ship as well, his words still lingering in her mind.

Later…

"The ship's new name? You want me to decide this?" Magno asked as she got into contact with Parfet through the Comm.-link via Pyoro. truth be told, the name of the ship never really crossed her mind. She had never given her previous ship a name, mainly because she never saw the point of it. She didn't really mind the name Ikazuchi, but apparently the crew did mind and went behind her back and got together to think up a name for the ship.

Parfet nodded as Pyoro showed the names suggested by the crew to her captain through his monitor." All of the crew contributed and we want you to pick one."

"You sure that you don't mind?"

"Just pick a really cool one!"

As she scanned the names, Magno spotted one that caught her eye as she considered it. "Hmmm...The Nirvana. Not a bad suggestion. Who came up with that one?"

"It was the commander's idea." Pyoro answered for the old pirate leader.

"Fine then. From now on, this ship will be under the name of Nirvana."

In the engineering room, Parfet lowered her head in defeat. "I knew it." After turning off the communications, "and I thought for sure Pegasus was a sure thing too ."

Later at the men's quarters…

Hibiki munched on the food he had gotten from Dita as she met up with him. He tried to leave quietly still thinking Dita was trying to kill him, He was surprised when he found the food being vastly superior to the pellets that was forced down his throat since the time he was a child. He devoured the entire lunch like he was truly eating food for the first time in his life, experiencing the different flavors and textures contained within the lunch box. Dita simply stared up at him smiling the entire time, ecstatic about the idea that she was the sole reason for his apparent happiness.

As he was finishing up on the meal, he spotted Dita looking at him with the dreaded Sad Puppy Dog eyes, and that look was making him somewhat uncomfortable.

"Why are you staring at me like that?"Hibiki said not knowing what to do to in this situation thinking she was going to start crying out of the blue due to her eyes becoming watery. the look on her face as well as the emotion emitting from her eyes and posture did weird thing to his insides, a warm pleasant tingle which he attributed to the food encased his entire body and increased his heart rate.

Dita smiled and came closer, her face mere inches from his. "Mr. Alien, will you promise to only combine with me in the next battle?"

Hibiki tried not to blush as he found himself looking deeply at Dita. "I told you so many times already! I'm not Mr. Alien! My name is Hibiki !" He then that all the other men in the room seemed to be looking at him

Bart look something akin to either disgust a for what was going on and fear for what he thought was going to happen to him after Dita was done with Hibiki, Duello looked on with morbid fascination, watching the two teenagers as if it were a science experiment and they were the test subjects, all the while making mental notes to himself about their interactions and reactions to each other. Kratos was smirking from across the bunks, seemingly enjoying the situation Hibiki was in as well as knowing full well just how uncomfortable he must have been.

"looks like you got yourself a girlfriend boy, I'm proud of you" kratos laughed deep and load, the metal walls giving his laugh an almost echo effect that filled the ears of the rooms inhabitants, who didn't know just what he was talking about.

Hibiki gulped, and developed a stutter as he began specking without a solid thought in his head as he noticed Ditas smile grow larger and her eyes almost become a deeper shade of blue after hearing the large mans words.

On the bridge…

"So those spheres will help mask the message pods?" Magno asked Parfet

Parfet nodded. "Yes Captain, I designed the pods to transmit the recognition code we received from the enemy ship so they won't be destroyed by the aliens." Parfet said just finishing putting the finishing touches on the programming of the pods communication units.

"Very well then. Launch the pods."

The twin canisters with the new messages rocketed off into the dark abyss of space, all the way to Tarak and Megele half way across the universe, Though the paranoia began to rise within most of bridge crew as the watch the pods launch and begin to disappear into the darkness of space.

"Even if they receive our messages, I doubt that there is a guarantee that they'll even listen." Parfait remarked as she gazed at the moving pods. not fully believing that the respective leaders of the two worlds would even entertain the notion of reading the message from known criminals like themselves.

"Wish for it Parfet." BC said as she too gazed outward. "It's not much, but that's all we can do and hope for."

The captain silently nodded towards her seconds words, silently contimplating the consequences of the two words not fighting off this threat.

* * *

Been a while since my last update, sorry lot of stuff going on in my life and I literally hag not free time what so ever to write. I'm trying to revaluate my time to update more frequently.

write a review if you liked it or hate it or whatever

To the people who actually seem to like this story(I'm a kind bad writer) you have no idea how shocked I am that people would like it as mush as some of you did

I also decided that Kratos bother will soon join the crew of the Nirvana, as well as some other GOW guests, leave some suggestions in your review and i'll see what i can do

In a unrelated note, i think i'm going to be on a reality TV show come this March called the Ultimate fighter, would be awesome if some of you would watch to see my ugly ass, or not that probally the smarter option

once again i'm so sorry for the huge time gap of no updates, not gonna happen again

till next time peace The F%&K out


	5. Chapter 5

you know the drill by now,own n

* * *

In the Bridge of the newly named ship, the Nirvana…

All of the crew members of the ship Nirvana were very much busy with the day to day operations of maintaining the ship, but since there seemed no evident element of danger nor the outside threat of impending death hanging over their heads, they were very much taking it easy for a change for now at least.

The ship found itself parked just outside the orbit of a desert like planet, That seemed entirely vacant of any and all time from the first general overview of the planet. With further investigation, all water sources were found miles under hundreds of feet of solid bedrock under the dessert surface. Making the possibility of finding any life on the planet surface slim to none.

As of right now, most of the bridge crew were busy getting whatever information they could manage to acquire on the desert world.

Right now, the two top officers of the pirates were getting ready to discuss the crew's recent findings on the planet.

BC and Magno found themselves looking at the over view of the planet's surface, an endless sea of sand was the only thing their eyes met, as the desert seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, the only other thing of interest being the locations of several ruins, that seemed be left by some ancient civilization before its society were swallowed up by the harsh sands.

"This planet…" Buzam began as she and the elderly woman looked at the images being shown to them.

"I know BC…it looks as if it's dead…something happened here all right."

"You're right, but something that could cause a world to be like this? It's very strange indeed…with your permission Captain, I would like us to find out what happened here, there just might be some sort of valuable information that we can get once we're on the surface."

Magno sighed and looked at the planet and then towards her second in command, who happened to be the most efficient officer she had on her roster to date.

"BC, I'm not entirely worried about you going down there, I just can't shack the feeling that this might be a bit more tricky then what we're used to.

Buzam nodded at the Captain, fully aware that her worries were with merit as the two of them looked at the barren world, something had happened here and though it was strange, the second in command had a feeling that they were going to find out just what that thing was one way or the other.

In the Hanger Bay…

As the three Paeksis enhanced Dreads were in their berths and on standby, one of the occupied Vanguard Hanger Bay's was currently occupied by the young Vanguard pilot and his partner. The teen looked a bit different from before…no doubt from his time under the Spartan's training and supervision. He was a bit taller and had more muscular definition, though not that much at this point and time, though he was still wearing his normal clothes from his home-world. With him was his handy tool bag and mechanic's supplies as despite having systems flooded by the Paeksis, the Vanguard still needed regular Vanguard maintenance to fix any bugs and Hibiki was the kind of guy who wanted everything to work just fine. He also wanted to fix any leftover damage from the time that alien Space Urchin ship had fired on them both.

Still, the young man was still very tired, still reeling from the battle as well as his time under Gascogne's Register. Since he was a Third Class Citizen on Tarak, he and others belonging to his social class received barely any medical care if any when they were sick or injured, as they could not afford to pay for it with the pittance they were paid for their labor. So it became unspoken rule on Turok that Medical care of any kind was reserve primarily for the upper class citizen and other higher ups on the food chain.

"They really know how to work a guy to the ground around here, don't they buddy?"Hibiki spoke to his mecha as he continued his daily upkeep of his partner. Whipping the sweet from his brow as he took a swig of water to cool himself down. He had started his maintenance as soon as he had gotten up, and had gone on for four hours without incident, he was just about to call it day and go and grab a bite when he was done with this last panel.

Unknown to him, while he was busy giving off some complaints about how tired he was and how all of the women were all not appreciative of his efforts even after the times he helped save their lives, a certain redhead was about to ambush him. Dita did her best to climb up the ladder to surprise her Mr. Alien and since Hibiki had his mind set solely on his machine as well as his growing hunger, she did just that as she fired a floating heart right at him. As soon as the floating heart hit Hibiki, was very much startled, being taken aback by the shear shock of the "attack", he hit his head on top of the panel he was working on and feel backwards and landed down on his back.

Hibiki sighed and spoke carefully. More to himself then to anyone else as he stared upwards at the ceiling

"Maybe I'm just not eating properly again." he said now finding him in the unfavorable position of not even having enough energy to bring himself back to his feet

It was then that he spotted Dita looking down at him as she walked closer to him to get closer to him to see what was wrong, She stood tall with the tips of her toes mere inches away from his prone head.

"Are you okay?" confusion dripping from her voice as she seems both worried and confused by Hibiki actions

Hibiki didn't say anything as he tried to make sense of his exhaustion, unaware of the fact that he was very much looking up Data's skirt, he felt this sudden feeling of embarrassment as other feeling bombarded his sensors as he suddenly managed to get up to his feet with an explosion of unknown energy. Dita looked straight at him, concerned somewhat as Hibiki seemed very much exhausted, and the two of them heard a loud sound coming from Hibiki's stomach.

In the Medical Bay…

Hibiki was now sitting cross legged on the examination naked as the day he was born save his loin-cloth underwear. As Duero began to read his vital signs on the heart monitor, Hibiki couldn't help but think about just what the young doctor and more importantly his fellow man would tell him.

an unknown but powerful poison that the women had slipped him in his food or water?, Female germs that threatened to devour his flesh?, his body as well as his mind being affected due to a parasite occurring naturally within the female species? Hibikis mind wondered to all the dangerous and evil and pain ways the women could have affected him, he bravely braced himself for the worst as Duello showed him his scans.

"Your heart rate is normal and your vitals seem to be normal as well, the x-rays came back with nothing out of the ordinary, so in all intense purposes your fine"

Hibiki sighed in relief when the doctor's words meet his ears. He wasn't worried about death…. Nope not in the slightest. Dying by way of poison or dieses just seemed so…unmanly, he would much rather die in the heat of a battle if he was given the option anyway, if not he'd just stick to staying alive

Hibiki then took at the screens Duello was showing him that showed that while he was exhausted, he was still in good health, well as good as health as a third class citizen could be.

Before Hibiki could say his thanks to the doctor he was cut off as said Doctor placed his next sensor right on Hibiki's forehead and the next one on the right side of his face.

The Tarak teen suddenly reacted as one would expect when Duero placed his hands on his leg and began to run them up and down the length of his leg. Clearly not aware that the young doctor was simply checking to see if there were any growths or lacerations that the x-rays might have missed that could be a sign of something being physically wrong with him.

"Hey? What are you doing?" Hibiki said trying to get as far away from Duello as he possibly could, clearly not comfortable with that particular line of touching.

Duero looked somewhat surprised at Hibiki's reaction and naturally replied.

"I'm examining you." He said as if it were the most simplest thing in the world. Confused about how anyone would mis-interupt

Hibiki glared a bit and replied still in a very wary tone.

"just Keep those hands to yourself!"

"You know there might actually be something wrong with you, you've been acting really tense lately Hibiki, not to mention that you appear to be extremely exhausted, care to elaborate?"

"You might say that, working with those women is just so tiring, not to mention protecting them. Fighting side by side with them is no picnic at all Duero."

Duero looked a bit surprised by the answer, but smirked at the very same time as he absorbed Hibikis words.

"So you're protecting the women, kind of an odd twist for a man of Tarak to take, don't you think?"

"Well…I am stronger than them, I mean with my Vanguard and all…and they…are well, weaker than I am, though not all of them are… I mean, they are good pilots…but still, it kind of feels, right to be protecting them…somehow…"

Duero smirked a bit more and noted the slight elevation in Hibiki's pulse rate, along with his twiddling of his fingers, and realized that maybe talking about women right now was not a good idea for the still exhausted Tarak teen.

"Maybe we should not talk about the women for the time being, all you really need to do is get some more food into you and get some more rest"

"Good idea Doc and thanks." Hibiki said with a sigh, as he released a large breath he didn't even relies he was holding.

It was then that Paiway showed up in a fashion only she could, in a flash she seemed to jumped onto the tall doctors back and covered his eyes with both hands with her legs wrapped around Duellos waist to hold her up keeping her from falling to the ground and keeping her in place.

"Guess who" she said in a voice usually reserved for her frog puppet, as she smiled obviously enjoying herself in her current position. Hibiki looked on emotion barley showing on his face due to morbid exhaustion, but still feeling somewhat uncomfortable watching the little exchange.

Weal let's see who the only female on the ship who talks in that little voice? Paiway perhaps?" Duello said, no emotion coming off his words, but obviously playing along with the girl.

With a pout that said he wasn't any fun, she hopped off of the tall male with a huff

She had been watching the two men for some time now in the infirmary, and by those two, she really meant the doctor. Since meeting him and becoming his apprentice of sorts she has grown leaps and bounds in regards to her medical knowledge, but if she said that was the only reason she was viewing him she would be lying.

Since this journey began the male doctor, now the leading medical officer on the ship has become very popular amongst the female pirates, after only a few weeks of interaction with the men from Tarok, almost the entire ship was in agreement on three things about the men. One: it was best not to upset Kratos, Two. Despite what they had all grown up being taught about men, Dita treated Hibiki like her lover (no one could think of any reason why) and three. Everyone on the entire ship wanted to play doctor with the doctor. one would think that the third and second one were similar in many ways, the only differences were even though 99% were in on it no one would admit it to anyone else and also that fact that the good doctor hadn't seemed to have caught on to his admirers shows of affection either that or he seems to be fine with them which seemed to make him even more popular.

Paiway seemed to be no different; over the course of the voyage he had seemed to evoke more and more of her pai checks with each coming day. The ones when he was not alone became her most heated ones. Whenever she would take a snap shot of Duello talking to, examining, or simply walking past the female members he would invoke the same reaction from them, and she hated that

Every time she saw the faces of the girls she would see nothing but red and feel nothing but anger and jealousy towards her fellow crew

Anger because she spent the most time with him, being the only medical staff besides him, and she hated the idea of others trying to "steal" him away.

Jealousy because, being the youngest member of the pirate crew she lacked the "physical" features of some of the older women, and felt that it was easier for the others to take the doctors attention because of that.

As she turned to look at the man her attention seemed to be solely on the pulse monitor that the Tarak medic was using to check on his fellow man's current medical condition.

"What's this thing? A video game?' she asked, wondering when Duello was going to ask her to play with him, if it was in fact a game

Duero was somewhat surprised by that question as he knew that before he had been assigned to the Medical Bay, Paiway was the chief medical officer on the pirate group and thus was knowledgeable on most if not all medical equipment and devices used in medical treatment, and the most basic of those devices was naturally the pulse monitor he was using. He wondered why then was she not familiar with basic equipment.

"You mean you don't know that it's a pulse monitor?"

Paiway then gave the young doctor a slightly panicked look, and replied back at his question.

"What's it to you if I haven't seen one? Anyway, all health problems can be fixed in the Jacuzzi!" disappointed in herself embarrassing herself in front of the doctor

Luckily for her both men looked at one another with some note of confusion as to what sort of place or location on the Nirvana was Paiway talking about, of all the places on the ship, they had never heard of this placed called Jacuzzi.

"Jacuzzi?"

"What the heck is that?"Hibiki thought out load, imagining some sort of machine straight out of Dr sues that seemed to be capable of fixing any and all medical problems.

In said room…

"Ah, space battles always damages my hair."

The buxom blonde Dread pilot, Jura Basil Elden said adoringly as she lounged on a salon chair with a silk towel wrapped tightly around her head keeping her long blonde hair from flowing out. As another silk towel draped over her body effectively covering her so she would not technically be naked but doing little else.

She sat on the cautioned chair without a care in the world as she continued to relax as several attendants surrounded her while massaging her legs and shoulders as others were stationed at her hands and feet giving her a prim and proper manicure and pedicure.

"Don't worry Jura. We're here to revive your beauty; you have nothing to worry about." One of the attendants assured the blonde Dread pilot, as she applied a second coat of paint to her toes.

"I appreciate it. I don't feel like going into battle unless my hair is set just right."

Pyro had been floating around the room viewing all the women in it as they enjoyed some of the finer things in life when he found himself beside Jura.

Being a machine the little automaton was allowed into the recreation center where the women relaxed and took the time to clean themselves, unlike the men were. As he observed them he floated around them all the while viewing footage and taking electronic notes about their actions, all the while becoming more and more confused by the actions of the women.

"Sometimes I just don't understand humans at all, they make no sense." The little robot said as he view Juras treatment not fully seeing the reason behind everything she was doing to sustain her image.

Jura sighed as she felt her body tension melt away from the massage she was getting, she moved her head to the side and saw a hot tub where Meia soaking in it.

"Meia, are you trying to lose more weight again?"

"Excess fat gets in the way of combat."

The blue-haired girl replied to her blonde comrade's inquiry in a simple and honest way. Why risk injury during the course of a battle when she have fixed the problem areas beforehand.

"But you won't have any breasts left at that rate." Jura pointed out to her leader. Clearly the only one of the two who was worried about meia assets at the moment.

"Heh. Don't worry too much about me. I can take care of myself Jura." Meia laughed at the comment Meia wasn't as interested with maintaining her feminine appearance was her blonde comrade was. He never was probably never will, she was a strong believer in actions speaking loader then words, and in this case breasts meaning nothing in a combat situation.

Male section of the ship

The room was bare and almost completely empty, it was along the outer most section of the men's section separated from the rest of the ship secluding its two lone inhabitants from the entire crew.

Kratos was laying on the ground in a straight rigid position with his toes pointed towards the ground and one of his hand open in a similar manner. With a grunt Kratos hefted his massive body off the ground, his massive frame suspended off the floor due to the sole efforts of his single tree trunk thick arm, fully extended while his other was held firmly held behind his back.

With a slight discharge of breath, kratos bent his arm, bringing his body back down towards the ground, his chest stopping its decent the moment his torso just barely touched the ground. His movements soon had become a repetition of one other, his mind and thoughts on a continuous loop.

The rooms other sole inhabitant, The young Dita sat still, legs crossed with her knees pointed to either sides across kratos back. enjoying the warmth generated from his body as well as enjoying the little ride his movements caused, remembering fondly of memories of swing sets and play grounds she had as a little girl on majelr.

She had come to him in complete distress, wanting his opinion on a matter of what she described as being of great importance.

She was dismayed slightly to find nothing in the vacant room to sit on, to discuss her problem with kratos. She was originally content to sitting on the cold floor directly in front of kratos when she was hit with inspiration. Kratos, for his part, did not throw the young girl, nor did he have any strong urge to do so, which surprised kratos and delighted Dita to great length. Like some kind of cat, Dita shifted around on top until she found a comfortable spot on the massive mans back. She was looking for a spot where his movements didn't jolt her or threaten her to lose her balance and cause her to fall. Once she did, she let out a happy sigh and began her tale.

She went on to great length to describe her concerns over Hibiki, or who kratos assumed was Hibiki considering she used the term Mr. alien, which she had been known to use interchangeably between the four men on the ship

Apparently Hibiki was feeling less then healthy and Dita wanted to find a way to make him feel better and she just couldn't think of anything to do, So she came to kratos thinking he knew of all the "secret Alien" things all the men seemed to talk about.

As Dita talked about Hibiki , Kratos continued on with his work out, If he was ignoring her, Dita didn't seem to notice. As time went on her speech mannerism became much more fast paced an entire sentences began to flow out her mouth in such a way she didn't stop to pause or to even catch her breath.

Noticing this Kratos called out to her, effectively cutting off her rambling before she hyper ventilated or blacked out due to lack of oxygen, all the while not stopping his repetition of pushups.

When she was sufiently calmed down, Dita looked down towards kratos with a smile plastered on her face with a pleading look emitting from her eyes, or what kratos assumed was a pleading look on her face, mainly because he could see it.

Kratos seemed to be a loss with words at the moment for the first times in a long time. He hadn't expected this girl, let alone any of the women on the ship to come to him for this sort of thing.

If he were to be truthful with himself, Kratos would admit that the only reasons he ever got married were due to the sole efforts of the woman would become his future wife.

Kratos, knowing full well this was not in his area of expertise, was a second away from shooing the young girl off of him and sending her off to someone more suited for the role of relationship advisor. fortunately for Dita, kratos relished he must have been the only person on the entire ship who had any experience in a co-ed society.

he growled slightly at the thought, low enough so that Dita assumed it was another grunt of excretion. With a powerful push, kratos bucked Dita upwards towards the ceiling like a bull at a rodeo. Ditas surprise was evident by the "EPP" sound she made as she rocketed up in the air.

Kratos jumped to a standing position within the next second and raised his arm out forward in front of him with his hand opened. Moments later his hand closed around Ditas ankle, effectively stooping her freefall before she hit the ground.

Dita stopped herself from begging for kratos to do that to her again as he placed her back standing on her two legs. she smiled brightly up at kratos in a way that made kratos question if she knew any other emotion other then happiness, the look in her eyes gave him flashes of his daughter and of Pandora, but kratos shook those thoughts out of his mind.

"I can't say I'm the best person to talk to about this sort of thing.."Dita was still looking at him with that pleading look that seemed to clawing at his mind

"But…" If possible Dita seemed to brighten even more then she was before

"There was a saying where I was from which was the easiest way to a man's heart was through his stomach"

Dita nearly squealed as the worlds left his mouth, a sure fire way to help Hibiki feel better and to get her into his good graces at the same time.

"That's a great idea Mr. Kratos, Mr. alien love my lunch box I'll make him something even better and he'll be back to being his old self again and he'll only combine with me for now one." she said nearly exploding with excitement.

She grabbed his hand intent on dragging him along for the ride, but found him not even being close to budging from his spot.

Girl what are you doing" kratos said looking on as Dita continued to struggle to make the man follow her

"We're going…"Pull" …to the Galley…"Pull"…to get food…"pull"… and then …"pull" …I'm going to…"pull" …to make something for…"Pull" Mr. alien" She said between several attempts at moving the Spartan, looking almost like a small child trying to pull open a door that clearly says push over it.

After hearing the girl out kratos let out a sigh and began walking towards the direction of the cafeteria almost causing Dita to fall on the floor in the process while half heartily dragging her a few feet.

With a happy laugh to herself, Dita grabbed hold of one of kratos large hands with one of her small delicate ones and began walking side by side with the large man, with her ever present smile shining brightly at him.

"This is going to be along day" kratos said to himself as they made their way down to the galley

In the galley…several minutes later

The Food gallery was busy, nearly filled to the brim with the beginning of the lunch rush, as well as those who had missed breakfast. Many of the women were sitting with their meals and seemed to be enjoying both the food as well as the friendly conversation going on around them.

The light conversing and jovial mood of the meal time was dampened slightly by the other inhabitant of the cafeteria.

Kratos sat alone at one of the tables in the corner, isolating himself from the rest as he ate his meal in solitude. The women tried not to look, but couldn't help themselves as they looked on as the Spartan consumed what they thought would be enough food and calories to last a person for an entire week. He paid them no mind as he focused on eating his first true meal, in he didn't know how long.

When he became the new god of war, Kratos chose to cast away all that made him human, everything he viewed as a weakness. He ignored his hunger and his thirst, believing such worldly needs were below someone such as he.

The never ending feasts of Olympus did little to satisfy his hunger for revenge, the limitless goblets of wine could never quench his thirst of battle, and no sleep could ever put his body or his mind at rest. During this time Kratos contemplated if the "gift" of immortality as well as the thrown of the god of war was the worst torture the gods could have ever bestrode upon him for his crimes.

Since his fall from grace, he had no time to rest; there was simply the mission at hand, from battling the sisters and changing his fate, to over throwing the gods themselves. His true dream in years he saw his family, it was that moment he began to berate himself for forsaking sleep.

In front of him laid a feast, the smell of which reminded him of his wife's cooking which only seemed to magnify the tastes he was experiencing. This was the first time he had eaten anything but those food pellets that Bart had bribed him with so he could sleep with reassurance he would wake up the next day. The second he bit into his food he decided that being dragged off by Dita may have been the best thing that could have happened, if he had to eat another one of those pills he was going to throw someone, probably Bart, into the airlock.

As he was busy devouring his meal he then spotted Dita as the redhead stared intently at the nearby food conveyer belt that ran from the kitchens to the galley and back, allowing the women to easily get their dishes by merely picking them up from the belt and taking them to the tables. It seemed that Dita was looking for a particular meal of some sort.

It was then that her comrade Barnette was arriving to get one of the dishes for her own meal, and the emerald haired woman then selected a dish that had sliced fillet mignon, with baked potatoes and some basil on it with a tag of 789 calories. Naturally Barnette was surprised to find her intended meal in the hands of the bubbly Dread pilot.

"I think I'll take this one!" Dita said cheerfully as she held the meal in her hands.

Barnette was not very happy with what had just happened and made Dita aware of her displeasure as she glared at Dita.

"Dita! That's loaded with calories, why would you want that?"

"That's all right Barnette, he told me he wasn't eating right."

Dita said with a smile as she headed off with the meal, leaving Barnette confused to who she was referring to.

Kratos chuckled slightly at the scene and returned to his meal soon after, intent to eat his fill before leaving for the next part of his work-out when he noticed a visitor.

She was in her late teens, maybe even younger than that, kratos couldn't be too sure. She was small and delicate looking, like a porcelain stature, she had brown hair tied in a bun behind her head with big expressive eyes in the matching color. From her cloths kratos could tell she was a part of goscos register and from the way she held herself was rather new to the whole pirating thing.

For a moment she looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights, not saying a thing, her eyes looking in every direction except directly in his eyes.

She turned to look behind her at some other girl sitting at a table, kratos noticed that everyone in the room had stopped eating and began to watch the two. Staring intently as if every single one of them were waiting for something to happen.

The girl made her move right then and there.

"Uh m-Mr. k-kratos?" she spoke, her voice soft, almost frightened of his answer or upset with herself for even talking with him.

He didn't say anything right away; he simply took a swig of his beverage and motioned for her to continue with her question

I-I'm ve-very s-sorry to interrupt y-you but…" her voice drifted out as she couldn't help but to divert her eyes to the side away from him. A deep red blush covered her entire face, as she began twirling her fingers together, a nervous trait she picked up as a child.

After a few moments of awkward silence the young girl erupted with a sudden rush of courage, a mild surprise to say the least for people who knew her.

"I' STORYYOUSTARTEDPLEASE" she nearly shouted at the man, her eyes wide and puffy as she took a large inhale of air to catch her breath.

She said nothing as she intently watched kratos finish his drink waiting on bated breath for his answer, the only sound in the entire room at the present time seemed to come from kratos as he gulped down his drink.

With a soft clang kratos set the glass back onto the table as he stared straight ahead at the girl, who at this point looked nearly as pale as he was as she stared back at him with her mouth hanging slightly and her eyes black at if shocked herself with her sudden outburst.

Kratos couldn't help but smirk at the sight.

"What part were we up to again?" he said looking straight at the girl noticing how she seemed to hang on every word he spoke

Instead of answer from said girl, kratos heard an immense squeal emitting from behind said girl, as well as a near stamped as every member of the crew situated in the room left their individual tables and ran towards him. In an instant the chairs of his table as well as the chairs of the surrounding tables and the space between the tables on the floor were filled.

Kratos seemed to be at a loss of words for a moment until he noticed the small girl who requested the whole thing situated on his lap all the while looking up at him with stars in her eyes.

"Odysseus was just about to rescue his crew from the goddess Circe after, they became ship wretched"

It brought back Kratos the memories that he had just finished Homers Iliad, about the Trojan War and the fall of Achilles, and had just began retelling the Odyssey to some of the girls earlier in the week.

"_Long day indeed" _

On the bridge…

"Heat signatures have been confirmed."

Ezra then looked over on her own scanners and made her own report on her findings.

"There's a very large sandstorm in the area so I can't be entirely sure Captain, but there appears to be signs of habitation on the area we are currently in and several large structures as well, they don't seem to be natural either."

The bridge crew was very much busy with their duties on monitoring the planet that they were currently orbiting. As they were getting ready to start a ground operation, Buzam then began to tell the Elderly women that they would have to make ready a ground team, they however had to use Vanguards for this operation.

For their advanced weapons, armor, systems, and more, the Megele built Dreads had one fatal design flaw; they were never designed for planetary operations. The Dreads were meant only for space borne operations and were not able to handle land operations.

"I think that it is best that we do investigate the surface Captain, we might find some supplies along with some Intel"

"Hmm…the kitchen is running a bit dry" the captain said to herself, then continued on with "suppose there's no sense in not stocking up on some fresh supplies when we have the chance. All right then, guess we'll be doing this like old fashioned pirates."

"Thank you captain," B.C saluted to the old woman and seamlessly turned on the specking system to announce the plans to the crew.

"attention all crew members, we are about to begin a surface operation, begin monitoring weather conditions and also begin calculating the best location for a landing zone to be where our forces shall be deployed, along with the right time to send them down there." Her voice carried throughout the ship and heard by all members of the crew

As soon as Buzam made that announcement, she made another one that really got the attention of all the people on the ship. But most of all, the men, she decided to inform the ground team that would be sent down of their new form of transportation.

Dita currently had an arm load of food with her as she tried to hide from the nearby galley staff, but as she was now sure that she could escape, the communications system throughout the ship came to life and Buzam's voice came on.

"Attention all crew members, we are going to being a landing operation to the surface of the planet below us…All dread crew members are to report for simulation training for Vanguard operations."

The massive Spartan smirked at that little bit of the announcements, already hearing Hibikis mouth complaining about the whole thing. He was still in the galley, but this time he was accumpied by the good doctor, as he joined kratos table for lunch, discovering also how the women's food was vastly superior then the pills he grew up on.

"They're going to use the Vanguards? Well…this will be interesting."Duello said off hand, curious on what the reactions of his fellow men would be on the subject

"Interesting you can already hear the brat screaming his lungs out." Kratos remarked, as he considered Hibiki's love for the Vanguards and his still lingering distrust with women.

And the Spartan was right, since Hibiki was in his current bunk and heard the announcement, and he naturally reacted in the expected pattern.

"WHAT? WOMEN ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO USE THE VANGUARDS?"

In the Hanger Bay where the Vanguards were being stored…

Ever since the incident that had flung them half way to this side of the universe and into the aliens' back-yard. The Vanguards were there on the newly named Nirvana, but unlike the Dreads, the Vanguards were not used in most of the battles, and were naturally beginning to show signs of neglect and disuse, no doubt due to the women not finding a need for them…so much so that the pirates have even cannibalized them for spare parts. Now however, since this mission was going to be on the ground, they were about to get into gear and be used for their maiden purpose…combat. Thus they were put more into working condition to get them all back to operational condition.

The women however were not impressed with the Vanguards, however their dislike did not stream from a design flaw or one of function but seemed to be a cosmetic problem .Namely in their current color scheme of gun-metal grey and metallic silver. As such, the women began to paint them and place colorful patterns on them, in order for them to look more…presentable, and by presentable what they really meant was to spray paint them bright and pretty colors and call it a day.

Barnette sighed as she, Jura, and Meia, along with a handful of female Dread pilots looked at the Vanguards that were still being colored up by the engineering teams.

"Geez, I know that the Dreads were never meant for atmospheric operations on a planet, but that certainly doesn't mean I have to like using the Vanguards."

Barnette disliked the mecha and she was very much opposed to them as weapons in general, they lacked the flare the excitement a dread gave, to her they were useless and inefficient glorified dolls that the men liked to play with. Jura on the other hand was not concerned with that as much as her fellow pilots. For once she was not concerned with outside appearances of her machine as she had her sights on something else entirely, something she said was of "greater importance" then some dumb hunk of metal, as she looked in the direction of her own mecha, since she had in her favorite shade of crimson, after her Dread, and it was armed with a sword.

"I really don't care much if it's a Dread or Vanguard, just as long as I can combine to make something beautiful." she said dreamingly imaging just what she'd make when it was her turn to transform with hibiki.

At this point, seemingly out of nowhere Bart came skidding past them, flashing the group of women a flashy smile as he seemed to take the chance to begin boasting about his "Accomplishments "as well as his "Skill" with the vanguards.

"Hey there! If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask me! During my long years in the academy, I have endured hundreds of training missions. You could then say…"

He didn't have the time to finish his boasting when he noticed the eyes of the women seemed to follow to the left, he followed their sights and found his eyes landing directly on the images of both Kratos and the doctor as they both watched in silence as another of the vanguards began to be spray painted.

The handsome doctor and the massive man seemed to be conversing slightly with each other about the need for the paints and cosmetic aspects the women seemed to need for combat. Bart turned to notice that one of the Vanguards seemed to model itself off of kratos himself, the mech was pure white along its entire body, with the only using off color being a copy of kratos red tattoo covering its arm half of it chest and ending at its single eye.

Bart was about to make his way towards his fellow men to discuss with them a plan to gain the trust of the women by teaching them about their advances in technology when suddenly…

KLONK!

Bart stopped in his tracks as he was floored by an anti-gravity lift came down right on top of him. The technician who was on the lift gave a look down and scolded the young boastful cadet, "What are you doing standing under the lift? We're busy here so try to stay out of the way!"

"Okay." Bart moaned as he rubbed his sore head. He felt as if his entire ego deflated as he retreated back to the male section of the ship to recuperate from his head injury. As he walked towards the entrance he was nearly tackled it the ground by none other than Hibiki who ran through the doors into the room as fast as he could.

As Hibiki ran into the Hanger Bay and was stunned to not only find what the women had done to the Vanguards but to find his fellow men standing there letting them get away with it. He was just about to give them a piece of his mind (well, To Bart and the doctor at least. He was going to ignore that fact that kratos was there because hey, he wasn't from Tarak and didn't understand their logic and way of life (also that fact that he Knew yelling at Kratos was a very STUPID thing to do) when he gasped as he spotted Dita on the ramp leading to his partner, and she was brandishing what looked to be some sort of paint sprayer. He didn't need to look around him to know what the girl was thinking but it sure helped a lot.

"HOLD IT! DON'T YOU DARE!" Hibiki cried as he immediately rushed to his mecha. The mere thought of having his partner decked out in cute colors made him feel very uneasy and uncomfortable.

On the ramp, Dita readied and aimed her instrument at the mecha. "I'll make Mr. Alien's partner all clean and pretty! I'm sure that Mr. Alien will really like it!"

Just as Dita fired off a stream of pink paint, Hibiki arrived and jumped in front of his Vanguard to protect it from getting a new paint job. This action however caused the liquid to smash right into the young Tarak teens face and upper torso. As a result of being doused in the liquid, he was now half covered with the bright pink paint, causing him to have an appearance of something out of a children's cartoon.

As soon as he got the paint out of his eyes, Hibiki directed a rather angry glare at the young Dread pilot.

"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING THIS TIME?" he screamed, his anger rising slightly noticing the red heads ever present smile shinning at him, oblivious to his red hot anger.

"WOW! A PINK ALIEN! HOW CUTE!" he gushed at the sight of him nearly dropping the paint to glomp the poor boy in front of her but luckily managed to keep that urge at bay for the time being.

Hibiki continued to glare at Dita, her smile and attitude making hibiki less angry despite his best efforts to stay mad at her

"She's really crazy!"hibiki said to himself, exasperated at the situation unfolding in front of him

In the bridge…

"Well, I must say I'm surprised I was the first person you choose to supervise this operation "duello said to himself slightly confused at his current predicament but intended to make sure no one else knew it. Hr was called up to the bridge by the captain for reasons he wasn't practically sure about, once there she explained to him how he, the ship's doctor, would be placed in command of the ground forces of this particular mission..

To say he was unnerved by the whole thing was a bit of a understatement. It came out of the blue, and duello couldn't help but feel as if the elder pirate was hiding something from him, his suspicions growing with each passing moment his mind was allowed to wonder.

Between the fact that my usual squad leader is completely green when it comes to land combat, and the one with most vanguard combat experience is a brat with an ego the size of said vanguard, you seemed like the best option" the captain answered honestly enough, but duello feared there was something the aged captain wasn't telling him

I'm just a doctor, I don't know how well I'll be able to handle myself in this field but I will try my best to see it through" duello said voicing his concerns for the new responsibilities in regard to this particular job. He wasn't looking forward of seeing or hearing the reactions of the dread squads when they found out, they already gave him strange looks and glances whenever he walked by and he feared that this decision by the captain would in fact create an explosive environment.

"I'm sure you'll do just fine, besides I have a feeling you have someone in mind that can help you" the captain said with a smirk, almost like she was able to read his thoughts and knew just what was going on in his inquisitive mind of his.

It was true, in fact the second she had told him her decision he began thinking of ways to partner up with kratos for this particular job. the massive man definitely came off as the type of person who knew his way around a war zone and duello definitely needed that particular expertise if he had any hope of getting the ground crew ready in time.

"I'll pass that information to the rest of the ground team, though it will take us a bit before we can send them down as we still need to find the best candidates for piloting the Vanguards from the crew that we have here right now." B.C chimed in her two cents beginning typing into a console, to relay the information to the crew.

The doctor nodded as he recalled seeing the Vanguards when the women were busy painting them, he didn't say anything at first but he found their ways of coloring up the Vanguards to be better looking was down-right foolish and stupid from a very strict military stand-point, doing that announced you as a target to the enemy. It went against some of the only things he felt were right about what the academy thought him and his fellow requites.

Kratos seemed to agree with his opinion, finding no strategic point in what they were doing. Kratos deceiver that this mission was not a combat oriented mission but a recognizance one. In and out, was all that mattered in a mission of this type and keeping a low profile was the key to its success. He held the opinion that the whole point was for a scout to keep from getting noticed and the whole painting the giant machines bright colors when moving through a desert lacked any intelligence what so ever.

Putting his thoughts aside for the time, the doctor asked for permission to leave so he could see the performance of the women who were going to be part of the landing group. he had no doubt that since Hibiki was the only qualified Vanguard operator in the entire ship, then he was no doubt going to be part of the team for this mission. His thoughts drifted towards kratos, and how he would be able to add to their collective think tank in regards to the mission.

The four bridge bunnies worked on the scanners, but after a while they began to get suspicious as they were not picking up any life signs on any of their respective scanners

"Odd…" Ezra said reviewing the information on her screen for the third time, originally thinking she had misread the information

Both the women turned to look at the most veteran of the four bridge bunts as she began to scan again.

"What's wrong Ezra?"

"I don't get it…there's nothing on any communication frequencies, no replies… nothing, either something's gumming up my sensors or no one's on this planet."

Belvedere then looked through her scanners and so did Amarone and they found out that their pregnant comrade was right, they picked up plenty of heat sources scattered throughout the world, but absolutely nothing on their life scanners.

it was as if this entire planet was deserted or abandoned, by its settlers, these answers brought nothing but more questions such as what could have made this world barren in the first place and what sent its inhabitants away it in such a haste?

"Ezra's right…there's plenty of heat sources to suggest possible habitation, but nothing shows up on life scanners, something's not right."

"Do you think that those aliens we fought with have something do with all this? Could this be part of some plan of theirs?"

Buzam looked at the two of them and replied as she looked at Ezra's own scanners as the pregnant woman did her own work.

"Keep your eyes on the monitors, once the storm clears and the results are in, we can send in the landing party to get some answers."

"Roger."

In the simulation room…

As the Spartan observed the training runs of the women, he made a quick guess that since the women were trained for long range warfare with their Dreads for a very long time, and because of that there became something of a culture shock to those who stepped into the vanguards for the first time.

While the Vanguards did not have the armor, fire-power, and technological advantage of the Dreads, they made due with versatility, close combat mastery, and adaptation. This was proven true as the Vanguards were made by the men of Tarak to fit their psychological profile of close combat preference, and while the Vanguards were not as well armed as the Dreads, they were able to be equipped with more weapon types and systems than the Vanguards, that and their ability to function on planetary surfaces and in space made these units very well suited for the operation, but the pilots were not.

Kratos stood, simply watching the exchange between the women in the simulator, silently evaluating their interactions with each other, a picture slowly forming within in his head. The doctor had asked him to sit in on the crews testing. The doctor's obvious reasoning being that Kratos being the veteran Warrior was used to testing the skills and processing the emotions and physical reactions of soldiers placed in situations of extreme stress. He agreed, and even though he had no earthly idea how any of these "Vanguards" worked he saw the reasoning with the doctor's train of thought. The women were new to these machines, and were bound to make mistakes and become stressed out due to the sheer difference between the sleek Dreads they were all used too.

Their attacks were slow, their reactions were off, and their Movements were delayed and awkward. The expert dread pilots went from being top dogs to complete amateurs, and it was frustrating for all of them. Several of the dread pilots left the simulator room in a huff, complaining about how it was the machines fault they failed and not because of their inherent skills. Those few would obviously not be chosen to be on the mission; they seemed to liabilities and would endanger not only the mission but also the others on the mission.

A Surprise too many of the crew, the usually clumsy Dita showed herself as being the most skilled with the humanoid mechas. Despite or maybe even because of this preserved reputation she had with the other members of the dread teams, young Dita scored the highest by a large margin during the simulation. Even then the good doctor, who graduated top of his class, stated the numbers Dita was putting out broke most of if not all of the militaries records that he knew of.

The other major surprise it seemed was due to the strange behavior of the squad leader, Meia Gibson before and during the simulation started. she seemed skittish and somewhat nervous when she saw the vanguard simulator for the first time and her expression seemed to get even worse when she found out that it was a perfect scale model of what a vanguards cockpit looked like. To her credit, she at least seemed to shack off her uncertainties and entered the simulators intent to master it.

Kratos knew of the girl, he had meet with her on different occasions during the course of his stay. From his recollection she seemed to both calm and efficient, bordering on stoic, she wore a mask to hide her emotions from the other crew members. The crew saw her as indestructible and that was how she licked it, it was easy for anyone to see. But kratos had seen, like he always has, the fear in her eyes as she view her life flash before her eyes as she prepared herself to face her death, No warrior is truly fearless as he faces down death, No matter what they say.

It was that same fear that caused kratos to call out to Ares, and that allowed the Spartan to forsake what was left of his humanity for his life without a second thought. The same fear that drove Cronos to devour his own children, It was the same Fear that caused the Olympians to forsake his Brother Deimos and to imprison him for all eternity, And it was that same Fear that drove Zeus to the brink of madness in his hatred of kratos that led to the destruction of the gods and of the world.

Kratos seemed to consider that particular factor into his mental notes, this woman has face death a number of times since he came on this ship, many more times before even that. The concept of her just now becoming uncontrollable due to her shot nerves didn't seem to be an option to the big man.

It was then that both him and Duero noted something else that demanded attention…Meia's life support readings coming from the simulator's sensors, Hibiki noted that as well, and instead of saying anything looked on as to what the other two were looking at, he also noted that meia seemed to be breathing much harder than before and seemed to be unfocused on what she was doing. The Tarak teen then looked at his mentor and saw the stillness of the Spartan that told him enough that the Spartan was concerned with what he was looking at.

"What's wrong kratos?"

"I think we have a problem with Meia…I'm surprised neither of us noticed the symptoms sooner "Duero nodded as he recalled his medical classes and lectures concerning the symptoms and readings he was looking at.

"So do I…but let's be certain first…"

In the simulator…

Meia pounded the side of the cockpit with deep frustration as she saw that she had failed her simulated mission dismally and was considered killed in action by the computer. She tried to calm herself down and keep her focus, her heart beating a mile a minute from the adrenaline coursing through her veins. It was then that the comm.-link came online and she heard Duero's voice.

"Are there Medical overrides on Megele?"Duello said, more of a statement that he knew something was wrong then an actual question.

"What are you talking about?" she said, voice filled with intensity as she still tried to regain her composure

Duero's face became even graver as he spoke once more.

"On Tarak, doctors like myself are given full authority to ground pilots who find themselves in situations such as the one you happen to be in right now. Do you want that to happen?" duello said, both his face and voice blank despite the concern he felt for the pilot in front of him.

Meia glared and snapped back with her emerald eyes blazing red.

"Of course not!"

"All right then, I suggest you switch you're video monitor settings to wide screen, that should make the strain your mind and body a lot less difficult and keep you focused."

"Keep your opinions and advice to yourself! I don't need help from anyone, least of all you! I'll be just fine, thank you very much!" she said, finally calming down and shut the monitor off, ending the conversation between the two. This however did not stop her from changing her screens setting.

Elsewhere…

"Hmmm…. How to use the ten-in-one knife shield… following the will of the pilot…ah, simultaneously with the electron pulse beam! I can do this!" Bart said to himself and smiled as he went back to reading the Vanguard instruction manual confident that he would soon be proficient in the machines usage.

"Whatever Bart, just keep doing whatever it is you're doing." hibiki said as he went to leave them room, bored with the whole situation he was in, the previous anger he felt towards the women for using the vanguards gone with the assumption that none of them were quite at his level of skill.

Hibiki was tired and decided to stretch a bit and move out of the room. However his attempt to leave the room was stopped, as his vision was blocked by a very ample amount of cleavage and added the fact was that he was pressed between them instantly stopped him in his tracks as he gazed up and found himself being looked down at by a certain blonde Dread pilot as he felt himself suddenly become rather uncomfortable an slight hot under his color.

"Hello there." Jura said in a seductive tone of voice as she smiled her best smile at the short Vanguard pilot.

"In the next battle, you will be combining with me! I hope you remember that." Jura said, sounding almost as if she was talking to an animal rather than a person. Afterwards she and Barnette left the training center, leaving Hibiki confused by her actions and for some odd reason he felt a lot more uncomfortable once that was over and done with.

"What the heck was that all about?"Hibiki said in disbelief, confused by both her actions as well as the feelings and reactions she caused him to experience because of said actions.

Back at the simulation room…

The lone activated simulation unit opened, showing Meia, panting for breath and covered in sweat lying on the consoles. Her breathing was haggard and strained, sounding as if her lungs were on fire as she gasped for air.

"I'm very concerned about her Doctor." The little navi robot said as it floated behind the doctor

Duero nodded at Pyoro's words as he and the Navi-robot looked at the young Dread squadron leader. Meia's state was another indication to the Tarak medic that she was indeed suffering from a very serious medical condition that had something to do with very tight spaces, namely that of a Vanguard unit.

"Meia…I was looking over the medical readouts and the symptoms you have appear to be psychosomatic in nature, and that tells me that there is something that happened to you that got you with this condition, do you have any clue as t what had caused this?"

Meia looked at him, a bit calmer now, but still nowhere near as composed as she's usually seen.

"Hmph, you're diagnosis couldn't be any more wrong. It's nothing more than fatigue Doctor." she said dismissing the man's concern as she tried to sooth her beating heart.

Duero sighed slightly, not dismayed in the slightest about her rebutting his concerns for her

"An adamant denial I see…well, this tells me that this case is far more serious that I thought it was." he said as he took a step closer towards the woman and the machine she seemed to be having problems exiting.

"I am not denying anything, it's just fatigue, nothing more. "she said her voice weaker then she would have liked due to the now close proximity between the two. His entire presence sending volts of electricity up and down her spine as her heart beat even faster than before when she was in the simulation.

Her mind was hazy as her limbs felt as if they were made of stone, heavy and immobile, but at the same time she felt as if she was walking on air, as if she was as light as a feather being blown by a gentle breeze. She felt as if she was high on drugs, her thoughts and feelings were alien to her as if they weren't hers. she felt as if the man so close to her was a drug she found herself become slowly addicted to.

With that thought imbedded in her mind, Meia managed the strength to get out of the cockpit as both the doctor and robot moved out of the way to let her pass. However, after only a few steps she nearly collapsed to the ground due to the remaining stress her body was going through due to the training exercise.

Duello luckily managed to catch her before she hit the ground preventing her from injuring herself further, he was however taken aback at the feeling of the women going stiff in his arms, her eyes were glassy and foggy as her face once pale complexion was now crimson and warm to his touch.

While the doctor was overlooking her physical reactions meia was experiencing a fever dream of heat and passion. her limbs were numb and refused to move her away from her current position. Her nerves shot signals of heat and electricity all over her body sending her body into light convulsions that did not go unnoticed by the good doctor.

Her skin was sensitive and hot as it strained against the fabric of her jump suit as she almost melted against the doctors arms, he grabbed her with both arms and held her against his chest. The heat generating from his body along with the rhythm of his heart beat both soothed her and excited her in ways she hadn't experienced before in her 18 years of life.

She felt his hot breath against her neck making the hair on her neck stand up and Goosebumps form all over her skin. Her mind was hazy, she didn't hear or understand what the doctor was saying to her, but she really didn't seem to care at the moment. All that seemed to matter to her was this moment and the fact that she was here alone with him

He lowered his face closer to her and held her face in his hands as he examined her, worry plastered onto his face looking for any signs of what was causing her sudden and seemingly serious condition.

Her eyes widened slightly as she stared deeply into the doctors lone visible eye through her daze, his callused hands sending comfortable tingles of pleasure run through her skin, the look of his lips as the curved and moved when he talked was now her main concern, her mind was racing at the thoughts of how his lips felt seemed to the only thing running through her mind when suddenly

"I do believe that the infirmary would in fact be the best place to conduct a physical doctor" kratos voice boomed from the monitoring room via the load speakers. He had been watching the entire event unfold since the start, and he really did not want to see the doctor get himself molested by an overly emotional Meia, so he choose to stop the little hug fest they seemed to be having before the squad leader did something she would regret about later on and what would cause a crew riot if anyone else found out.

As soon as the worlds registered in her mind, Meia shot up so fast she nearly collided heads with the doctor who was still in the midst of examining her.

As she stood she couldn't look at the doctor in the eye, content with staring anywhere but him as she collected her thought about what had just happened .

she quickly back peddled towards the door not even bothering turning around as she took one shaky step backwards after another. As she turned to leave through the door she took a passing glance at kratos through the clear window of the observation room.

"There's nothing I hate more than nosey people." she said low and clearly, more to herself then to the Spartan. her words however were heard clear as day through the thick glass.

With that, she left the room…leaving a confused Duero and Pyoro to discuss the uniqueness of human nature. However, the two were not aware of the fact that the Spartan was watching the whole thing and while Duero said that although he was a highly skilled and knowledgeable medic, he was a man on an all female ship and his opinions no matter how valid they were would not carry enough weight on the Nirvana, thus despite his better judgment, he would hold his peace.

In the bridge…

"Hey old lady! You there?" hibiki shouted over the monitor, annoyance evident in his voice over the days past events.

Both B.C and the captain turned to see none other than Hibiki looking very irate and seriously concerned about something. The elderly woman knew that for whatever reason he was looking specifically for her and would not speak to anybody else about his concerns, since there was not much for her to do at this point, she then decided to take the call and find out just what was the problem for the load youngster.

"There's an old lady right here little one, what is it you want little one?" she said, voice cherry despite the boys annoyance which seemed to annoy the young vanguard pilot even more.

"First off, tell you're women to stop messing up the Vanguards! Geez, all that coloring, we're on a mission for Grand Pa's sake, not some parade" he said in huff, his patience was running thin and he wanted anyone who would listen to know how he felt.

"anyway" Hibiki's next line of words were suddenly cut short when he heard another voice coming from off screen and spotted a certain someone that the captain or anyone else on the bridge could see coming right at him…forcing to cut communications with the bridge.

"Augh, she's here again!" he screamed as the screen went black leaving the captain and the commander silent as their minds processed what theirs just saw.

The captain was the first of the two women to react towards the strange scene that unfolded on screen. The captain could contain herself as laughter overtook her, tears welled in the corners of her eyes as she still looked at the spot the holo monitor was, while Buzam looked on, totally confused with what she had just witnessed.

"It's really ironic now that I look at it, the ship's gotten a whole lot livelier ever since we brought the men onboard."

"Yeah." Buzam said as she still was confused by all that had just happened.

At one part of the ship…

"Ahhh! What do you want this time huh? Don't tell me you're going to douse me with paint again!" hibiki said back against the wall, she had cornered him in the hallway at dead-end. Hibiki kept going through his head that he was not going to show fear in front of the girl and was failing miserably in said department.

Dita however smiled with her big eyes shining nothing but love and admiration at the young man and presented hibiki with a new clothe wrapped lunch box.

"I'm not going to douse you with paint Mr. Alien, here, I brought you another one, and I heard you were still hungry so I made some more food for you in case that doesn't fill you up."

Hibiki looked down at the box that was presented to him with a blank expression, not quite sure about what to say to the girl in front of him. It was at the moment this particular moment in time when his stomach once again made that little sound cue that told him he was rather hungry again. With that in mind, he wasted little time and took the box and ran, with Dita happily following him.

In the Bio-Park…

Hibiki once again found himself alone with dita whilst eating the food she prepared especially for him at a rapid fire pace as he and his red headed companion sat on the large picnic clothe along. Dita was smiling the whole while, as she watched Hibiki eat every last bite of her home cooked meal she made for him and she found she liked it when she knew that Mr. Alien loved the food she was giving him. The feeling of giving him joy seemed to bring her joy in ways she could barely understand herself.

After engrossing himself in his meal for nearly five minutes Hibiki finally looked up from his boxed meal and noticed the young woman stares directed at him and he quickly reacted. Instead of shouted at her and running away He simply turned around and went to eating his meal, it seemed as if he was getting more and more accustomed to her presence and his hostility towards her decreased as an after effect.

however his illusion of mild acceptance disappeared when Dita seeing his reaction as chance to get closer to him he moved to follow him and stare at him once more…he had no idea what the redhead was doing, why she was doing it, and why was she always smiling at him, with those questions in his mind, he looked at the redhead and glared a bit.

"Why the heck are you staring at me like that?" he asked, intending to despite her strange behavior towards him

"It's nothing; it just makes me feel happy watching you eat." She said honestly as her smile grew, seemingly brightening up the entire area they were in

"Hmmm…" Hibiki sighed and focused back on eating once more, not knowing the right words to say at the moment but not wanting her to think less of hi for some strange reason he decided that stuffing his mouth will give the illusion that he did in fact have something to say to her he just didn't have the time.

The food really helped him with getting his lost strength back and if he didn't have to eat any of those bland pill ever again it would be too soon. Even if it was a bit confusing as to why this young woman was always looking at him.

"Seeing you eat like that makes me feel so happy." Dita said in a happy sigh, she felt perfectly content with just being with the boy and knowing full well that he took some enjoyment from being with her was enough for her to be happy as well.

Unknown to the two of them, they had an unexpected guest watching the whole proceedings. Paiway watched Dita and Hibiki during their picnic intently through the bushes and then took several pictures and smiled secretively at what she managed to gather.

"Heheheh…I got you…Pai Check!"

In one of the showers of the women…

Paiway was now inside of another chamber on the other side of the ship as she gave her latest news to her comrade Jura, not minding the fact she was covered in dirt, twigs and leaves because of an unfortunate misstep she took to get a particular for a shot of dita and hibiki together.

The voluptuous blonde in question was currently in one of the shower stalls taking a shower, after what she considered a long and hard day.

" … And there they were, having a nice little picnic. The thing I noticed is that he was completely under Dita's control. And that was all because of one little boxed lunch." Paiway finished her report with a smirk, knowing full well she did good on her mission.

Jura smiled as she heard Paiway's report. A plan already unfolding in her mind about the information she just received.

"Hmmm, I see. That is one good bit of information I can use."

She then began to plan her newest attempt to convince Hibiki to combine his Vanguard with her Dread, now with this little tidbit of data, she just might have an edge now, that coupled with the help of her friend Barnette was going to give her in her mission, She was confident in her success.

At the kitchen…

"That's the reason why I'm doing all this cooking?" Barnette asked, as she was quite irritated as soon as she learned the reason why her partner and best friend Jura had requested her to cook one of her special meals, a fillet mignon, which Barnette was famous for amongst the rest of the crew.

"It's so I can combine." Jura explained; as she was rather busy admiring the polish of her nails. "You do love me when I'm beautiful, don't you Barnette?"

Barnette sighed in irritation, as she knew that once her comrade had an idea in her mind she intended to follow it through despite what anyone told her. In her frustration she gazed around her cooking area to add a little extra pepper to the dish when she spotted something she didn't remember taking out and smiled evilly when she read the extra hot hot sauce label on the bottle. Without letting Jura notice, she began to pour forcibly and jerked the bottle powerfully as the bottle's entire content was emptied into the pan as well as other choice spices to the mix as well to the fillet mignon she was preparing.

"All right, I'm done."

"That's why I love you Barnette. Let's go find him. I can't wait to see the looks on his face!"

"_Neither can I_." Barnette thought evilly, face mirroring what one would describe as being akin to the cat that ate the cannery

Unknown to the two pirates, another person was in the kitchen watching them intently as they cooked. Bart snuck into the place to find out just what exactly was it about the food made by women that Hibiki seemed to be more interested in that Tarak food rations, as soon as the women were out of sight, he went straight for the table and he looked at the pots, woks, and everything else Barnette had been using to create the meal. He was surprised at the mess and couldn't help but frown a bit at the sight.

"What is this stuff? Is this really the food women eat?"He looked incredulous at the food in front of him. The thick substance marinating in some brown looking liquid defiantly didn't look that appetizing to the former cadet, but if the other men seemed to enjoy it….

With that, he grabbed one of the leftover bits from the pan and ate it, unaware of the liberal contents of tobacco sauce, and spices that Barnette had put into the mix.

He was soon to find out as he got up from his seated position and fired out a plum of flames out of his mouth like a dragon. The after effects of which left his lips puffy and enlarged to Grotesque purportions and left them as red as the literal fire she spat out.

In the Bio Park…

Hibiki had no idea just what was going on, he had just managed to get away from Dita and was heading off to his vanguard to prepare for the coming mission, when he was suddenly stopped by Barnette and Jura.

before he could even ask what they were doing blocking his path and what they wanted with him they sprung into action and proceeded to hog tie and kidnap the young teen and take him back to the same place he had just ate his food with dita a little while ago.

"Hey! What are you two doing to me? What's the big idea?"he screamed while he struggled against the pair. Truth be told hibiki was neither the biggest nor the strongest man he's ever know, but even he was disappointed at himself by being manhandled so easily.

His next barrage of questions died before they even left his mouth when he spotted the tray table on wheels in front of him which had several containers on them. After only a few moments of pondering, hibikis mind began to wonder what was under these particular containers. He didn't have to wait long as Barnette took off the cover of one of the dishes and revealed the very first dish, the fillet mignon that Barnette had secretly doctored. He was stunned at the sight of the dish ,smiling the foods aroma instantly .

Jura took his stunned silence and the sight of his salivation at the sight of the food as her chance and whispered into her target's ear in the most seductive voice she could manage at that particular point and time.

"If you agree to combine with me, then you can eat this one." she nearly purred into the boys ear as she rested her right hand on his back, rubbing it up and down suggestively.

Hibiki frowned, he should have known there as a price attached to the meal, and despite his suddenly returning hunger for food, he stubbornly refused to be bribed in such a fashion.

"Fine then, I don't want it." He said defiantly, stead fast, at least he thought, in his decision

Jura smirked, she was not the shallow blonde most would mistake her for as she could tell that Hibiki was affected by the food, and she was closing in for the kill as she smiled.

"Too bad…it's so tasty it's to die for."

In the kitchen…

_Women eat stuff like that? And Hibiki's eating those things there's no tomorrow, that guy's really tough! He should be in the military to be able to tolerate that stuff! _Bart thought to himself as he downed what had to be his forth glass of water in the last few minutes , in vain attempt to cool down his badly burned tongue and lips after eating the super spicy bit that he had taken from the still unwashed cooking skillet that Barnette had been using.

He then took another long sip of his fifth glass of water and felt some measure of relief as the water cooled his ailing tongue. However ,at that moment the door to the kitchen opened and in walked a certain young red-haired Dread pilot.

"Mr. Alien, where are you?"

Bart quickly turned and spotted Dita, and after managing to cool his tongue, he began to speak.

"Oh…it's you…" he said in slight fear as he almost dropped his glass in surprise as he tried to think of an excuse as to why he was there in the first place on the spot.

"Oh, hello Mr. Pilot, are you all right? You're face seems kind of weird." Dita tried her hardest not to stare at his lips, she really did they were just so… distracting.

Bart realized that despite all his best efforts he still had the swollen and puffy lips. he placed down the glass quickly and then covered them with his hands, as to keep them from being seen more than they already have been. Hopefully for his sakes anyway, the red head didn't blab this to any of the other crew members, the last thing he wanted was for the news of what happened to spread all over the ship.

"Oh…it's nothing really!" he said in a vain attempt at hiding his face, as he slowly made a move towards the exit all the while muttering about his responsibilities on the bridge he had to take care of.

Dita looked on at him in confusion, her thoughts preoccupied in the humorous scene unfolding in front of her. Her train of thought was broken however when she noticed that the ice cream cones she was carrying for herself and Hibiki was already starting to melt, and that was not a good sign.

"Uh oh, that's not good, you want some?" she said clearly intent on letting someone enjoy the delicious treat, as she couldn't find hibiki anywhere on the ship.

Dita offered the ice cream to Bart…who naturally screamed out as loud as he could as he fearfully recalled what had just happened to him when he tried a bit of women food, and seeing such a large pile of white fluffy "death" before him, nearly caused him to faint on the spot. he was NOT going to risk killing himself to save face in front of a woman.

"No…No thanks! Maybe some other time! See you!" he said again, still trying to keep his cool but failing miserably as he began sweating and stuttering his words, mind encased in the fear of what the ice cream would do to him.

With that, Bart left the kitchen in a hurry, making Dita very confused as to what had just happened before her. It was then that she spotted Ezra walking into the kitchen, with a large collection of sour dough bread in her hands and she was currently munching on one right now.

"Men certainly do strange things, I saw him sneaking in here and getting some food from the pots." The mother to be said in between chewing her food.

Dita looked at her friend with some considerable confusion and asked.

"Ezra, why are you eating all that sour dough bread?"

Ezra blushed a bit as she took another bite from the one she had on hand already, and gave a sheepish smile.

"I just had this strange craving for something sour today."

Dita smiled as she said that, she was so happy for Ezra and equally excited the future child that would soon become a part of their crew and family.

At that exact moment on the bridge…

Amarone scanned the surface and got confirmation that the sandstorm had just died and the weather conditions were good enough for them to send down the landing party, but she knew that they had to send out the advanced recon unit first to make sure that things on the surface were good enough for the teams to land in ahead.

"The planet's surface is stabilized Commander, we have good conditions to send in the ground teams!"

In the Bio Park…

Hibiki, in a moment of weakness, had given in to the temptation of Jura's offer and had tentatively taken a piece of the fillet mignon and was about to eat it. The aroma making him drool as the food neared his open mouth, his hands shaking in anticipation. Jura was eager to see this and when it worked, she would have Hibiki wrapped around her finger, if he would just hurry up and eat that bite already. Hibiki seemed to be taking his time with the eating of his meal, almost as if he was waiting for his mind to get him to stop before he could devour the meat in front of him

Barnette on the other hand was eager as a child on Christmas morning to see the young man in front of her to panic and scream in pain as he ate the meat and ingested the spices. they were not enough to kill, she made sure of that, no need to go around killing any of the crew but it was enough to seriously cause pain that she was sure about.

However, as soon as he was about to take his first bite the alarms went off and Hibiki turned towards the sound, food instantly forgotten, realizing that the mission was now underway and despite his own reluctance to leave the seemingly irresistible meal behind him, the drive to finish the mission outweighed his hunger.

"Ah damn it…this is no time to be eating, hurry up and get to the vanguards!"

Barnette was able to avoid dropping the plate of food due to hibikis rash and sudden movements in leaving. as Jura looked on in surprise and mild horror as to her master plan failing so miserably, as Hibiki took off towards the hanger Bay so he could get to his own Vanguard, already fit for combat deployment.

"Don't forget that you promised to combine with me!"Jura called out as she watched the boy run away from her. She didn't want all of her hard work to go to waste and she really REALLY wanted to combine with the boys vanguard to create a machines beauty that matched her own.

Outside in deep space…

"I'm not gonna let these women make a mess out of any of the vanguards" Hibiki silently said to himself, voice filled with conviction on the mission before him.

Hibiki was the first to leave the Nirvana with his vanguard and head for the planet to start the operation. His Vanguard was armed with a special rocket umbrella that was used to both propel him forward towards the planet and protect him from atmospheres heat; behind him were the three Vanguards, one belonging to Jura, the other to Barnette, and the last belonging to Dita.

The drop-ship they were using to travel towards the planet was much different than hibikis method. the transport was long and held the three mech in side packed close together almost like a bob sled used by human long ago.

"_Damn it…they're here too?_ "He thought to himself bitterly as he looked at his "teammates" coming closely behind him

Hibiki thought as he accelerated his Vanguard faster as the drop ship followed closely behind him.

Inside her Vanguard, Jura controlled the drop-ship in order to keep up with Hibiki, after she had gotten over her first bad performance in the simulator, the blonde was able to use the Vanguard with renewed skill. She kept herself right behind Hibiki and smiled warmly to herself at the sight of his vanguard entering the atmosphere.

"I'm not going to let you get away that easily." She said with a smirk, calmly telling herself that today was going to be the day when she was going to combine.

Unfortunately for Jura and the success of her plan, Dita seemed to have heard the whole thing and had seen the look on the older pilots face when she spoke the words. To say Dita was not happy would have been an understatement akin to a star being large. Dita was not going to have Jura get her fingers on Hibiki now or any time in the near future if she had anything to do about it , and she made her intent known to her blonde comrade.

"You stop that right now Jura! The only one Mr. Alien is going to combine with it me!"

Jura glared back at Dita and replied.

"You keep the heck out of this and be quiet!"

Both women glared at each other as Barnette, being a neutral party in this instance, sighed to herself at the antics of her comrades.

"Hopefully this mission will be over soon." The green haired woman muttered to herself, the sounds of her two friends still bickering in the back ground. She could literally feel the huge migraine forming in her mind as they went on and on with their bickering.

The planet's surface…

The four Vanguards broke through the planet's atmosphere and each began its planet towards the landscape below. The first to land was Dita who performed a perfect landing from the shuttle all the while activated her umbrella apparatus to slow her decent as to keep her from crashing, the next was Barn who did well on the landing but deactivated her umbrella a little too early and dropped a few extra feet to the ground, luckily for her it wasn't a problem and the green haired woman landed on both legs with no damage to the mecha or herself. While Jura on the other hand, while landing perfectly, landed on a sand dune and lost her footing sliding off the sand dune and landing on her back.

The last of the four to land happened to be Hibiki, and in spectacular fashion; he could not slow his decent to the ground like the others because unlike the others he discarded his umbrella as soon as he left the planet's atmosphere. Without it he quickly discovered he would be in big trouble if he didn't do anything to solve his predicament. He blew his mecha rear thrusters to slow himself down. His plan worked for the most part, he slowed considerably but still managed to crash onto one of the many sand dunes that littered the surface with an audible thud.

He shook his head a bit, slightly embarrassed at the others seeing what he just did and continued to scan the area before him for anything the crew might have needed. While he scanned anything that came to his mind he was both happy and surprised to note that Meia was not among the ground team. He thought to himself about the reason for her disappearance from the mission. Meia was differently one of the most dedicated and stubborn people Hibiki had ever met, despite whatever personal issues he had with meia, he knew there had to have been a very important reason as to why she wasn't here with them.

In the Hanger Bay…

"Damn it! I didn't make it in time!"

Meia swore as she was now in the Hanger Bay and her uncolored Vanguard was in the area. She had hoped to be the one leading the ground team as she was indeed the leader of the pirates' forces, but she had not arrived in time for the deployment.

Pyoro arrived and then spoke, hoping to keep the Megele woman calm; he had been there when she and the Spartan had the conversation between them.

"You shouldn't be pushing yourself like this Meia. Won't they be fine without you on this mission?"

No, I need to be out there something might happen to them if I'm not there with them. Don't you see? I'm responsible for their safety, every ones safety" she pleaded, with the navi robot, trying to convince it to help her out

"How honorable of you" a voice echoed, all around her as she turned towards the direction she assumed the voice was coming from.

"y-you" meia said as she took a subcontous step back as kratos walked closer towards her in long powerful strides.

"you seem surprised to find me here" the man said off handedly, sounding almost as if he didn't truly care about how she viewed him or the reasons for him being here.

"you don't seem to show any interest in anything but showing off in front of the others" meia said, with forced fierceness, to anyone else she would have sounded like a lioness defending her territory, but to kratos she sounded nothing more than a frighten kitten.

"I believe you've confused me with the whelp" kratos said with little more than slight annoyance for Meias lack luster insult towards his character. People have said much worse to him all throughout his life, and if kratos was honest with himself he would say they were 100 percent correct with what they said.

"Have I? " kratos said mock shock as he got closer and closer to her. his loud footsteps matching the rhythm and volume of her heart beat. After what seemed like hours for Meia he stood directly in front of her towering over her making her feel like she was nothing more than a child being scolded by her parent.

I killed the last person who spoke to me like you have" he said with no malice or anger in his voice, sounding less like a threat to scare her and more like a declaration of fact.

I'm not afraid of you" Meia said defiantly towards kratos, she stood straight as she stared up towards him with all the fierceness and courage she could muster in herself.

If he was impressed by her courage or annoyed by her pride, he didn't show it as he continued to stare down at the dread leader. His eyes seemed to be drilling into her mind reading all of her secrets and judging everything that she had done in her life.

"Of cause your not, but I suppose you will be soon. " he said as he turned to leave through the same door he used to enter the room. Meia let out a soft sigh as he left her personal space. Meia flinched as she heard his booming voice once again, without even turning around he adding one more line of speech that seemed to make her knee goes weak .

"Just like everyone else" he said, his voice fading as his massive form left Meia alone to contemplate her next move

On the surface…

Jura sighed exasperated with the whole situation she found herself in. with Meia missing in action she was the acting leader of the ground unit, and with that said she had to remain vigilant and aware of her surroundings. The only problem was she was bored out of mind, so bored in fact she had trouble keeping her mind on anything except complaints about the mission. She looked around the seemingly endless wasteland surrounding her and sighed another heavy sigh.

"Just look at this place, it's completely deserted."

"You're right, there's no need for Meia to be down here with us right now." Barnette answered as the two of them moved about, disappointment evident in her voice. After so many hours in the simulators they probably weren't going to see any action what so ever while planet side.

"Wow! Look at all the sand!" dita said, her childlike amusement shining through despite her current situation. She seemed to be the only one of the four truly enjoying herself. Exploring new worlds and spending time with Mr. alien, what better way to spend the day, seemed to be her train of thought.

"Hey! Don't you go wandering around by yourselves out here! This is not some sort of field tri….whoa!"

Hibiki didn't finish his statement as he slipped and fell from his position on top of a sand dune and landed on his back staring up at the face of Ditas pink vanguard from on top of the sand dune.

" Mr. Alien!"dita screamed, worry evident in both her face and her voice as she desperately tried to see if there was something that happened to hibiki. Dita then began to guide her Vanguard down towards the fallen teen.

"Oh crap, I just remembered this is the first time I've been on planet with the vanguards too and now look at me…flat on my back and looking stupid." he muttered to himself, as his ears were in the process of being bombarded with pleas from Dita asking if he were all right.

"Well now…this looks like a good a place as any for us to combine don't you think? So let's get on with it…" Jura spoke a very seductive way as she strode towards the fallen vanguard. Hibiki couldn't help but feel even more confused and somewhat uncomfortable as he gazed at the blonde Dread pilot through his monitor, though he still didn't figure out why.

"You out of your mind? You want to do it here?" he asked defiantly as he stared at the scarlet colored vanguard, pushing his embarrassment to the back of his mind.

"Stop that right now!"

The Vanguards looked and saw Dita's Vanguard nearby. Inside her own Vanguard, Dita was not very happy and made her displeasure known.

"The only one Mr. Alien's going to do it with is ME!" Dita said, sounding almost like a growl from an animal getting ready to defend what was theirs from another. Hibiki could help but begin to blush when those words left her mouth.

Jura naturally retaliated at that remark.

"Now wait just a damn minute Dita! Who do you think you're talking to here?"

For a moment Dita's anger wavered slightly, she knew for a fact that despite her superior skill with the vanguards she was still an apprentice Dread pilot, and while Jura wasn't always in the lead, the blonde was the second in command of the Dread Fighter Squadrons next to Meia. Therefore, that made the blonde her commanding officer for the time being, and talking back to her superior was not the best course of action, and besides that Dita' didn't like to fight with any of her comrades and friends within the pirate crew. However, it seemed when it concerned Hibiki, it was a different story.

"W….Well you can't do it!" she said, her voice filled his the vigor and determination it had before. Jura and Dita began to glare at one another, neither one of the two women willing to back down and let Hibiki get away from them.

Naturally, after what had just happened to him earlier during the mission, Hibiki was not in the mood to be fought over like he was some sort of trophy. it was very demeaning to him and he made his displeasure obvious as he shouted out and activated his Vanguard's thrusters.

"WILL THE TWO OF YOU JUST CUT THAT OUT!"

The Vanguard Hibiki piloted took off in a flash, as his thrusters propelled him forward into the sky in the blink of an eye, in a matter of a few seconds he had been lifted hundreds of feet off of the surface with no intent of stopping or even slowing down any time soon.

And that was when everything started to go to hell...

It was then that a beam fired upwards straight into the sky out from one of the many structures that littered the landscape near Barnette and quickly slammed into Hibiki's Vanguard. The shots energy quickly disabled Hibiki's Vanguard sending the youth falling back down to the ground as arcs of energy surrounded the Vanguards.

"AAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!"

"MR. ALIEN!" Dita screamed as she and the others looked on as Hibiki fell, before they knew what was happening however the sand around theme suddenly seemed to come life.

"What the hell is happening over here?" Jura shouted out as she and Barnette spotted the sand coming right at them at high speed with nothing but bad intentions.

on the Nirvana…

Duero was positioned on the bridge monitoring the life signs of the ground team when he first noticed the change in Hibiki's life signs, then like a domino effect Jura's Barnette's and then finally Dita's life sign rose to dangerously high levels. The rapid changes told him quickly that something was going on down there, what though he could only guess.

"The pulse rates for all the the Vanguard pilots are rising fast, something happening down there!"

Buzam wasted little time and quickly spoke to the bridge crew.

"Give me a status report, what's going on down there?"

"There appears to be some sort of defense system that was activated somehow." Amarone reported.

"Not good…" B.C said to herself in frustration as she tried to think of anything to get the ground bout of the danger

The rest of the ground team appeared on screen as Jura, Barnette and Dita were in shock as they tried to make sense of what was happening to them all.

"What the heck is going on?" Jura asked to no one in particular as she began slowly moving her mech backwards away from the oncoming sand

"It's no use, the shield already completely surrounded us, we're trapped" Barneete answered her friend as she too began looking for any opening whatever small to escape with their lives.

"Mr. Alien is going to die! Please help him!"

"Calm down everyone! What sort of trap is it?" Buzam said, hoping to keep the situation from getting even further out of hand.

"Ahhhhh!"

"I don't know!"

"The…the sand…it's attacking us!"

Buzam was stopped cold by that and looked on in disbelief…

"The...the sand is attacking?"

in a blink of an eye B.C had snapped out of her shock trance and had quickly order the crew to do a complete analysis of the sand to figure out just what the hell was going on.

On the ground…

Dita was not kidding as the sand that covered the planet began to cover up their Vanguards at a pace that was not normal for a sand storm., it was almost as if the sand seemed to be alive as it spread all over the Vanguards.

"What the heck is up with this sand?"

Hibiki shouted as he looked at the sand that was rapidly covering his partner's form and body. Dita likewise was panicking as well as she tried to use her Vanguard's arms to block the sand from seeping into her cockpit but the sand seemed to spread over her Vanguard's body rapidly and seems to move on its own as there was no wind to move it along.

"There's something really freaky about this sand!"

"What is this stuff, there's no way this is normal sand!" Jura said as she looked at the sand covering the surface of her own Vanguard.

Unbeknownst to the others, Up from the atmosphere, another umbrella rocket was coming down to where the others were and then the umbrella units broke off to reveal Meia's own Vanguard as she began to guide her mecha down to the surface.

"This is Meia, does anyone copy? Is anyone down there?"

On the bridge, Duero couldn't believe his eyes as Meia's picture appeared on his monitor along with her vital signs below Dita's own.

"She's pushing herself to hard." he said looking on as Meia tried squeezing herself into the mission.

While all this was going on Hibiki found himself in a very dangerous situation. the sand had hardened all over the Vanguard creating a shell of sand that covered the entire mech . stiffening the points to the point that it soon fell over on its back as more and more layers of sand continued to thicken all over the Vanguard. At this point Dita had managed to turn her Vanguard to the side as she tried in desperation to reach Hibiki's own Vanguard.

"Mr. Alien! Try to hold on! I'll do what I can to help you!"

Dita tried to move her Vanguard to reach the fallen Hibiki but found that her own Vanguard was getting stiffer and harder to control the more she moved as the sand began to cover her own Vanguard. Hibiki noted that very quickly and communicated to the redhead.

"Don't try to force it! If you keep on moving, the sand will keep on spreading further!"

"Leave this to me!" Jura said as her Vanguard suddenly came over to Hibiki's, before anyone could ask what she was planning, her crimson Vanguard was free of the sand, Barnette also appeared to be clear of the sand along with her blonde friend. As soon as the crimson vanguard landed on Hibiki's own Vanguard, right on the hips no less, the blonde activated her thrusters in reverse, blowing powerful gusts of air through the vents on her Vanguard .The air stream blasted the sand away . It was then that Hibiki noted that with the sand completely off of his Vanguard the response systems of his Mech were now functioning, while not at 100 percent, was significantly better then what they were..

"Hey thanks a lot!"

Jura just smiled as she replied. "oh you're very welcome. So what do you say, why don't we combine? don't you think that a fare trade for me saving your life?

Hibiki glared at Jura for what had to have been the tenth time that day as he heard her request. Even now when their lives hung in the balance the only thing she had on her mind was the process of combining with him.

"Are you still stuck on that combining business? In case you've forgotten something, My VANGAURD can only combine with your DREAD. How do you expect me to fuse my Vanguard with your Vanguard anyway?"

Jura gave a shocked and rather disappointed expression. "You gotta be joking? NO! Why didn't you tell me before? I knew I shouldn't have trained for this mission!"

Elsewhere...

Meia tried her best to guide her Vanguard properly for landing, but the Vanguard landed hard on the surface of the desert planet, which was now in a blinding sandstorm. The harsh landing in combination with the raging storm outside seamed to temporarily short circuit her dread. all the monitors in Meia's cockpit were covered in darkness for a few moments as her systems tried to reboot it systems as Meia herself was covered in the deep red flashes coming from the emergency lights.

Due to the sandstorm that arrived unexpectedly, she had landed several miles away from where the others were. As soon as she opened her eyes and looked around, her eyes widened and her breathing became rapid and she took in short rapid gasps of air, her heart rate began to gain speed and thundered feeling like it was going to explode out of her chest. Within a few short moments she seemed to be covered in sweat as her entire body begin to shake as her eyes were filled with absolute terror.

It was then that Duero's voice managed to reach her through the comm.-link on her Vanguard.

"This isn't good! Meia! Meia! Do you hear me? Turn on your main monitor! Look as far away as you can! Meia! Can you hear me?" Duero called out in a commanding voice as he tried to get Meia to recover.

The young Dread pilot reached out with a trembling hand and activated a switch to bring her monitor back online.

"He…should mind his own… business!" she said as she tried to sooth her beating and panicked heart back to its neutral rhythm.

As the monitor came back to life and showed the barren and sandy landscape, her breathing came back to normal and her heart rate returned to being steady. However, the Dread Leader's relief was short lived, as she caught movement ahead of her, something was swirling around and causing the very sand to reseed lower and lower in front of her.

The sand erupted in front of her, as a giant pillar of lava shot up dozens of feet into the air and filled her entire vision. The red hot magma pooled in front of her and her dread as the patch of dessert sand was turned in a flash into a sea of lava and fire.

As her mind searched for any reasonable her eyes widened as she caught a flow of movement within the sea of red.

She didn't even have the chance to scream before it was too late.

The Nirvana…

Belvedere gasped in shock. She was busy monitoring the scene unfolding on the desert planet and was watching the markers that told her the locations of all of the landing party. Meia's marker suddenly disappeared from the map

"Meia's mecha has disappeared from the sensors!" she said grimly already thinking of the worst possible outcomes for the blue haired woman.

"What was that?" B.C said, worry evident on her face as she desperately wanted more information on the situation unfolding.

"The pilots are hopelessly confused, they're all in great danger" Duello said, his warning snapping B.C out of her thoughts

It seemed that things were going to get even worse

Planet side...

Barnette had volunteered to go off alone to go search for Meia while the others go out to search through the information stored within the planets a banded structures. As soon as she took a step towards Meias last known location however everything went to hell. suddenly from the ground sand erupted up, somehow taking the forms identical to their own vanguards. like zombies leaving their graves, the sand vanguards crawled out of the sand and made their way towards the now terrified ground crew.

there were dozens of them, coming from all different directions effetely surrounding the still somewhat disorientated pirates.

Both Barrnette and Dita prepared their identical twin punch blades that were standardly issued to their vanguards while Hibiki used his Vanguard's energy sword while Jura held out her vanguards custom made rapier. They stood with their backs to one another in a make shift circle so no one would be able to sneak up on them, as they prepared to fight for their lives.

The bridge…

The captain and B.C. looked upon the screen the thing that was controlling the sand that attacked the landing party. It resembled some sort of insect, like a tick, only it was invisible to the naked eye. despite it being only a fraction of an inch in size it was super advanced, and with its large numbers, according to the scanners with numbers ranging in the millions, The nano-bots were able to control the sand through a remote terminal located somewhere in the area.. the ground team could not even leave their current location to find the origin of the signal as Meia was now stranded behind enemy lines.

"What's happening down there BC?" the captain asked calm and collective despite the situation she found her girls in.

Buzam looked at the scanners and was quite surprised as she looked at the results.

"The Vanguards are mounting a very fierce counter attack and are also doing well on defensive actions."

"figures that boy would start a fight on a unoccupied dessert planet, what's going on down there?" the captain said going over in her head how an easy information collecting mission became complete and utter chaos after only a few minutes.

"I don't think you're going to like this captain" Duello said looking at his monitor, with a look on his face that spoke volumes of just how worried he was for hibiki and the others.

"of course I'm not, but I'd still like to know" even in time like this the captain seemed to keep her sense of humor. she knew if the crew would see her worry the moral would plummet. they looked to her for guidance and strength and damnit she was going to give them that.

"It seems the nano-bots have copied the vanguards appearance and used the sand to create duplicates" Duello said matter of factley, in a tone of voice that betrayed his nervousness.

Magno paused as she evaluated is words in silence, then suddenly she turned to her second B.C and said "he's right B.C I really didn't like it"

On the ground…

After the most of the sand vanguards had been destroyed, Barnette had left the group in order to search for the missing Meia. She was clearly hesitant about leaving the others alone to fend for themselves as she, in her mind anyway, a banded them by fleeing. Surprisingly it was Dita who shook her out of this mind set as she reminded Barnett that saving Meia was more important and that while outnumbered by the enemy they were clearly more skilled and with the use of their weapons had the clear advantage against the more zombie like sand vanguards.

" After a few minutes of fruitless searching, the captains voice spook load and clear within Barrettes cockpit" Barnette, have you found Meia?"

"Not yet…wait…my Goddess… WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!"

Barneete was completely speechless as she found herself face to face with a creature reserved only for her darkest nightmares

The massive creature towered above her and her vanguard like it was a living mountain of flesh and armor like skin. It reminded Barnette of some kind of reptile with a thick and stocky snake like torso in which was immersed in the lava pit. it was twice as tall as her mecha but most of it size came from its 100 foot long torso ,instead of arms and legs the creature had ten tentacle like appendages as long as the torso itself sprouting out near the back of the neck by the creatures face.

From what Barneete could see the creature had no eyes, nose, or ears to speak of, the only three physical parts of the beast face she could see were that the upper half of its seemed to be covered with two identical shards of almost molten rock, still red from the extended time it spent within the magma. the bottom half of the massive face protruded outward about 30 like the snout of a snake. The third thing she noticed happened to be the creatures four arthropod-like mandibles, that seemed to act as a make shift opening for countless rows of razor sharp teeth that not only cover the entirety of the creatures mouth but continued down through the monsters throat.

"What's her status? Whats going on? Barnette? Barnette!"

the screams of B.C. broke Barneete out of her stupor as she regained her focus back on the battle. she looked up above the creatures head and found that two of its tentacles seemed to be holding something. Her eyes widened as she found it was the battered and broken form of Meia vanguard. One of its arms were missing as well as half of its head, its torso however was what really had Bareenete worried. it steel was bent and miss shapend like the tentacles were squeezing the life out of it.

before she could take the offensive to save her captured friend Barrnete was thrown on the defensive dodging on of the tentacles coming down on her like a hammer trying to drive down a nail.

"Barnette! What was that? What's Meia's status?"

"Something has got Meia, I need back up here" she said as she managed to dodge another one of the whip like appendages. She barely managed to avoid the strike but the sight of the 20 foot pillar of sand as well as the deep crevasses resulting from the attack showed her, all this thing needed was one good clean hit to break her mecha like it was a cheap toy.

"AND HURRY!"

On the surface…

"What? Another one? How many are there?"Hibiki said as he slice another one of the sand vanguards in half with his beam sword. they had stopped being scared and stared to become more of an annoyance to the group since barrnette left.

Hibiki had lost count of how many he had "killed" since then but they just kept on coming.

He took out his smaller throwing sword and was about to fire when Duellos face suddenly appeared on the monitor "Attention ground team, retreat to Barneets current location " his face and tone of voice showing the three remaining pilots that he meant business and that there was no time nor room for any arguments.

They quickly disengaged any of the enemies they were fighting at the time and began the trek towards their two comrades.

Nirvana

"Even the four of them won't be able to put a dent into the creature we need reinforcements"

none of the others would have significant experience or skill with a vanguard to shift the tides, there's nothing we can do

"Maybe Mr. kratos could help them out"

"Let me get this straight you want to send kratos down there? that's suicide" Celtic said. the bear suit wearing bridge bunny snapped at even the suggestion of sending kratos.

"It was just a suggestion"

"no ,no, no I think that it's our best option so far" Duello said. Instantly putting numbers into the system to check if the plan forming in his head had even a remote chance of success.

"He seems to have a pretty decent record when it comes to doing things I thought were impossible, why would he change now?" The captain said with her usual upbeat attitude remembering everything the pale man had done since she first meet kratos. if anyone could change the tides of this situation it was him.

but how the hell are we going to get him on the planet's surface in time to save them

"I have an idea but it's a little dangerous" Duello said over his shoulder, typing the equations into his computer at a frantic pace.

what do you mean by a little dangerous?" Ezra asked, feeling a little bit uneasy at the prospect of another person's life being put in danger.

"He could theoretically be either thrown through the vacuum of space or be burned to a crisp entering the planet's atmosphere." Duello said, not even looking at anyone as he crunched the numbers of the percentage of success of his plan.

"Sounds like something down his alley" Magno said, wondering if even the pale warrior would be able to change the tides of their current situation.

On the surface…

Hibiki was starting to regret his want for an exciting mission.

He had his fair share of excitement for one day when he dealt with the sand vanguards and now this...THING was going to eat him alive. It was times like this when he really regretted ever breaking into the ikasuki.

Hibiki was taken out of his thoughts as he dodged another attack as a tentacle impacted the ground where he stood but a moment ago.

Two of the tentacles held Meia high above the ground, which left eight equally large and powerful appendages to be split between the four other vanguards which, despite the improved odds for the vanguards with their numbers proved to be easier said than done.

All of their weapons proved useless despite close combat being the vanguards specialty. Many of its weapons were not designed to offensively deal with a monster of this size successfully.

Dita and Barnettes could not get close enough to the monster to do any real damage with their punch blades or any of their secondary weapons due to its tentacles keeping them at bay. Juras rapier was snapped like a twig from the grip of one of the tentacles and is now spending most of her time simply dodging and weaving around the tentacles The only weapon that seemed to do any damage at all to the creature was Hibikis beam sword, but even that was neutralize as it was thrown into the lava by the creature.

With all this going on however, Meias current situation seemed to be their main concern as the fear that at any moment the creature will choose to break into the vanguards hull killing her instantly.

Nirvana...

Kratos stood atop one of the dreads in the hanger with a look of annoyance etched into his hard face. After hearing the good doctors plan but a moment ago relayed to him through the captain, and not long later found himself in the hanger. He soon discovered that the dreads cockpit was not designed to be occupied by his near 300 pound mass, so he found himself on top one of the unused dread with his chain wrapped around the sides like it was some sort of chariot.

The dread was to be remote controlled from the bridge by the captain herself, who despite her age was once one of the most feared pilots of the mejael military before her retirement.

despite the apparent danger that many of the pirate crew told him of to get him to change his mind Kratos trusted the doctors plan and besides the point, kratos had never backed down from an inherent challenge before in his life now did not seem to be the best point to start.

"Kratos are you ready?"

The doctors voice spoke to him from the bridge, the emotionless tone of his voice betraying the butterflies in his stomach as well as the slight twitching of his hands on the keyboard he wish no one could see.

"Just get on with it before I die of old age"

Kratos was impatient with the whole thing, he wanted to get down there and do what he had to do and get back. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

The dread beneath his feet began to his and rumble as the engines turned on, a fore shadowing of what was about to happen.

his body jolted as the space vessel jetted forward out of the hanger the force threatening to rip him off the dread but he held tight to the chained blades as the dread flew into space.

Kratos, much to his surprise heard nothing as he traveled through space, not the screams of the engine blasting only a few feet away from him, nor the beating of his own adrenaline fueled heart. He was shocked to find that the wailing of the craft which should be on the verge of deafening him as if it were the screech of a siren,

His body felt numb, and he felt completely weightless as he struggled to hold himself against the pull of the dark abyss that surrounded him. He felt as if his body was being pulled in every direction around him but he refused to let go, to give in.

His hands tightened against the chains so tightly he was going to draw blood as the Dark silence of space seemed to swallow him up as he moved closer and closer to the ever desert world.

Suddenly out of nowhere an explosion of violent sound erupted within his ears as an intense searing red hot heat engulfed the both him and the now slowly dying dread.

The atmosphere ripped and tore and burned at the dread searing and melting the meal as if it was a block of ice that was sitting outside in the sun all day. a lesser person would have succumb to the pain the fire and heat brought forth but kratos was no mere man.

Kratos readjusted his grip upon the chains as he used the forward momentum of the plummeting dread to steer the burning hunk of metal that was once a dread down towards the ground, gliding it towards the location of the vanguards and the creature.

Planet side...

Dita was thrown to the ground for what had to have been the tenth time of the day by the monster. She was the only one of the ground crew still in the fight as both Barnette and Jura were tied up by the appendages ad being kept down on the ground by the beast led tentacles while hibiki, still insisting he had everything under control, had been hoisted off the ground some time ago and has been dangling in the air for the past few minutes.

Alone and completely defenseless, Dita was forced to keep moving out of fear of being captured herself like her comrades. Her idea being if the beast's attention was on capturing her then it would hopefully ignore those it already captured. For the most part her plan was working. She leapt in between the remaining tentacles, keeping herself out of harm's way but doing little in terms of damaging the creature.

She was quickly running out of options however, as the constant strain her vanguards movements put on her body were starting to take their toll on her.

Suddenly from high up above, a huge explosion of booming sound erupted from the sky. What looked to dita like a giant ball of fire plummeted towards the ground directly towards the beast itself.

She did not know why, but she just knew this was anything but a random occurrence of nature. Her heart was racing a million miles a minute, partly from the adrenaline from fighting for her life, partly from the ever growing excitement growing from the pit of her stomach about who she knew was coming.

Despite the pain her entire body was in, Dita found herself smiling as the once shapeless ball of fire and flames began to form more rounded edges and more dread like in appearance the closer it descended closer to the ground.

"Mr. Kratos!"

The craft howled like wounded animal as it careened towards the still distracted monster and the now visibly reacting Dita as she scurried out of the way of the beast dipping and dodging past tentacles as she did.

As the flaming dread crashed into the beast the large monstrosity let out a mighty wail filled with immense pain as the still on fire make shift projectile burned and seared its flesh as its muscles were cut and torn as the immense pain it was in cause it to let go of it would be victims.

Once they felt the immense pressure of the appendages that was crushing but a moment ago subside both Jura and Barnette ran as fast as their vanguards could take them out of there to were Dita was watching the whole event with literal stars in her eyes for kratos for saving them in the way he did.

Hibiki was thrown in the air for the second time that day and once again for the second time that day soon found himself plummeting towards the ground below him as he landed with a dull thud against the desert sand.

Meia too was hurled to the ground but luckily land mush more softly on the ground then Hibiki.

Using the sand below him to soften his landing, kratos jumped off the dread before it connected with the beast and turned his free fall into a roll once he hit the ground. once his momentum subsided he settled into a crouched position waiting to see the positions of each of the ground crew once they escape from their current predicaments.

He noted that the only vanguard that was not moving at all was also the one that was closest to him had to have been Meia and that out of the five pilots she was the one who needed the most help.

Meias cockpit...

Meia laid in her seat completely motionless as the red emergency light began to finally die out. she was semi conscious and bloody but still alive. Small cuts and scrapes littered her exposed face brought on by broken glass. All of her monitors were completely destroyed, looking as if someone had decided to mash the screens with a hammer.

Her eyes fluttered slightly as she heard noises coming from the side of her cockpit outside. At first her heart began racing out of fear, thinking it was the monster from earlier coming to finish what it started. Her heart became loader as the sound of metal being torn in half filled her ears. The second the dark cockpit was filled with the natural light of the dessert sun she lost consciousness once again.

Outside...

The stainless steel hatch was ripped off as if it was a wet piece of cardboard and thrown to the side like it was a piece of trash.

Without a second thought kratos arms shot into the cockpit, slicing through her seat belts and lifting her now unconscious form into his arms bridal style as he proceeded to jump down into the sand and proceeded to run towards the nearest vanguard he could find, which as it so happened to be hibiki who by the looks of it was still trying to regain his composure after being dropped to the ground after the crash.

"Brat, open up this waste of steel now!" kratos half shouted at him in a tone of voice that offered no room for discussion.

With a hiss hibikis cockpit door opened and before he could even ask what was going on he found himself with an unconscious meia half collapsed, half hanging of him, looking as kratos proceeded to walk back towards the sight of the crash and the flaming wreckage that was once a dread.

"Hey what are yo…?"

Before hibiki could finish his question, the crash site exploded as chunks of red hot metal flew in All directions as now pissed off monster appeared from its would be grave.

Hibiki was speechless as he gazed between the beast and kratos, both unflinching as their blood lust took control of both of them. The beast running on territorial and primal instincts as kratos stood his ground, fully prepared for anything.

the beast shot towards him using several of its appendages to allow it to almost swim on top of the sand. Kratos saw the rampaging monster barreling straight towards him but did not move out of the way. He noticed that the beast was only targeting him and had seemed to have forgotten about the injured ground team.

He was now several yards away from the closet vanguard, Hibiki with the injured Meia, as the others were also scattered some distance away, so he knew they were safe for the time being at least while he dealt with the beast himself.

Nirvana...

"Captain we have a bit of a problem"

"What is now" the captain said fully exasperated towards all of the events of this once considered easy mission. She rubbed her temples with a heavy sigh thinking to herself just how this situation could get any worse.

"I'm reading signals coming from some the towers in the area everyone is in" Ezra said without taking her eyes off of the screen in front of her as she spoke to her captain. fear filling her voice with each word she spoke

"oh , this has got to good"

"Its a signal for a...self destruct countdown"

planet side...

As the monster speed forward with surprising speed kratos saw it was preparing for an attack. Instead of the beast whipping one of its tentacles at him like a whip or raising one of them up in the air to strike at him like a hammer like it had been doing before. It shot one of the lead tentacles shot straight at him like it was a spear or a lance intending to either pierce straight through his heart or any other vital organ to finish the fight quickly

His blades were un sheathed and in his hands within the blink of an eye. He side stepped to the left with his blade raised above his head and delivered a powerful vertical slash at the tentacles when it was halfway past him. Sending the sharp metal deep within the flesh and muscle of the appendage.

Wailing in pain, the monster raised its tentacle off the ground and raised it to the sky bringing its attacker with it. As he was being brought closer to the beast kratos, wrapped the chain of his blade around the tentacle, the heat and the roughness of the metal chain already grinding off the outer layer of flesh off of the appendage.

When he saw his opening he took it, as soon as another one of the tentacles was in jumping distance he soured through the air towards it, the motion caused the chain to rip through the flesh, slicing directly through the appendage like a hot knife through butter.

While still in mid air kratos threw both blades at the second tentacle impacting and penetrating the appendage up to the hilts of the twin blades. using his forward momentum to propel himself up and forward towards the face of the monster.

With both blades raised in the air over his head, he attacked with double vertical slashes that impaled the volcanic rock. he pulled himself closer towards the monsters face with the use of his chains and like a charging bull tackled the volcanic rock covering the beasts face shoulder first, effectively cracking it and turning the natural armor plating into nothing more than broken pieces of black pebbles.

With its face now exposed, Kratos deactivated his blades as he fell towards the ground below, before he touched the sand however he threw both of his blades into the beasts neck severing its jugular and forcing it to drown in its own blood, but that wasn't enough for the former god of war. with the blades still imbedded in the monster, kratos jumped onto another of its tentacles and used it to climb over and around the beasts head.

With his chain dragging behind him kratos wrapped his weapon around the back of the creatures neck as he now stood next his own flesh imbedded blades. with a powerful yank both chains were contracted, slicing through the flesh, muscles and bone of the creature severing the massive creatures head from its neck up.

blood flooded into the area filling crevasses that were made from the earlier fighting and being absorbed into the sand creating literal pools of blood covering the stretch of land as well as kratos.

Hibiki, as well as the others stood there silently watching the events unfold before their very eyes. The shear level of violence and carnage was something that any of them, not the head strong Hibiki, to the veteran pirates Jura and Barnnete, and especially not the naive Dita had ever seen nor experienced before in their lives.

Hibiki looked on with both utter horror and complete Awe as he watch the kratos walk silently towards him and his vanguard. Despite himself thoughts raced in his mind of kratos turning the blade of his swords on him and the others. If he did who would stop him, hell who could stop him if the thought crossed his mind to stuff them out like he just finished doing to the beast who laid dead behind the approaching kratos.

Hibikis hand flickered to his mechs controls, thought racing threw his mind a million miles a minute as he watch kratos get closer to him with each passing step.

The monster from before was nothing to the monster in front of him at the moment, but he knew if he didn't do anything the others with him and all the others on the ship would be in danger from this violent juggernaut.

He had to do something right now, if he caught him off guard then he might have a chance of at least getting him and everyone else out of here away from him before he could do anything.

The powerful wind of the desert blew across his sweat covered face chilling his entire body to the bone despite the ragging heat, his finger flickered against his mechs weapons systems as he prepared himself with what he knew he had to do

"MR. KATOS!"

Hibiki heart stopped when he heard the load feminine scream from behind him as the red headed Dita ran past his still down mech towards the approaching Spartan with a huge smile plastered onto her face.

Once she was directly in front of the massive man she looked as if she stopped herself from jumping up and hugging him for what he just did but instead offered him a simple towel she had brought with her for the mission.

originally she brought it just in case the dessert sun and heat got her or anyone else sweaty, though she admitted to herself the man before her seemed to be in need of the piece of cotton more than she ever could.

"Here use this Mr. Kratos" Dita said with a positive pep in her voice despite the scene unfolding before her.

Kratos took the towel without a word as he wiped his face as well as his torso and arms clean as both Jura and Barnnete made their way towards closer to Hibiki.

kratos watched as the three dreads walked closer to him and Dita two of the less damaged ones seemed to be dragging another Vanguard which Kratos assumed was the red head currently besides him.

"Leave now, return to the ship" he said to the four still conscious pilots in front of him as well as the red head currently trying to use his form to block out the powerful rays of the sun.

"Hey who put you in charge here?"Barnette said. She didn't like being ordered around by someone who didn't have the authority to do so but to be ordered around by a man no less, wounded her pride and to be honest pissed her off more than slightly.

that wounded pride however was no match for her survival instincts screaming and scolding her when kratos eyes turned to her. the same eyes that just a few moments ago were filled with blood lust, the same eyes that were the last image many former living creatures, mortal or otherwise, before dying a slow painful death.

"do you have a problem with that girl" kratos said evenly, watching intently for Barnnetes reaction, this was not the time for questioning authority. Their mission was over, they needed to leave, wounded pride and bruises included.

"well n-no, what I mean is" Barneete stuttered, the intimidation of kratos presence doing its job breaking her will to fight and argue the point.

"Good then leave now, return to the ship before you go off and try to get yourselves killed again"

"who do think you are? we were doing fine without you..."

of course Hibiki had to chose this time to open his mouth, and show to kratos how much of a man he was. Kratos figured Hibiki had a distinct distaste for getting push around, especially in front of women. for a young man growing up isolated from women a growing up being thought that they were monsters he valued their opinions quite highly.

"I'm the one who saved your miserable life and if you honestly think you were going to live to see the end of this day without me then you are dumber than I thought you were" kratos raised his voice slightly to get his point across better. he decided right there to cut to the chase, they were going back to the ship, their jobs were over, their mission complete, kratos felt as if Hibiki needed to learn his place , as well as to learn that there were some people he shouldn't try and get loud to, kratos just so happened to be one of those people.

"Now I'll say this again leave now or I'll make you leave" He said in a voice filled with promises of pain that sent chills down hibikis spine. There was once a day were kratos wouldn't have hesitated in killing Hibiki, or anyone else for that matter. But he was a changed man, for his family he do anything, but that didn't mean he'd have to like it.

"but what about you Mr. Kratos" Dita said looking up towards kratos with a pleading look on her face, worry filling her eyes about leaving kratos alone on the planet while they all left to the ship.

"She's right, the dread you used is completely destroyed, how do expect to get off this rock" Jura said, thankful for not having kratos anger or annoyance directed towards her after seeing what he could do first hand.

"I'll worry about that when the time comes just return to the ship, don't worry about me, I have some things I have to take care of" Kratos said finishing the discussion and turning around and walking in the opposite direction of where the vanguards would be heading. The pilots looked at each other and figured there was no other choice and left together for the shuttle.

As the rest of the ground crew left to head towards their shuttle to return back to the ship, meias now semi conscious body tagging along with hibiki, kratos turned away from the now dead beast towards the sight of several large structures jetting into the sky itself.

The largest of which caught kratos attention. The massive monolith towered over all of the other structures and looked as if it was the center piece of whatever society once called this land home. As the sand storm began to succeed more of the structures form began to become visible.

It looked humanoid in shape, in fact it took the appearance of a powerfully built male on top of a pedestal.

The statue itself looked to be made of pure solid ivory adorned with silver and gold to highlight its hair eyes and other facial detail. Its long haired looked to made of pure gold dyed to have an almost reddish tinge to it when light bounces off of it making it look like it was made of fire. The statue looked to made wearing armor crafted from the finest of metals this planet had to offer. The plate mail that incorporated most of its body was pure black with gold ornaments such as its shoulder pads and chest plates. All atop a pure gold pedestal showed kratos that whatever this man was, the people of this dessert treated him like a god.

When the sand fully subsided kratos eyes nearly threatened to bug out of his head as he took a sharp intake of break in shook at what he saw.

He stared directly into the face of the statue, a face he never thought he would ever see again and for the first time in years kratos felt somewhat unsettled at what looked back. He said a single word in a whisper, to clarify what his eyes were trying to tell his mind what they are seeing is the truth and not some illusion.

"….Ares"

Nirvana…

"Thirty seconds!" B.C said, counting the time down until the self destruct sequence would

"All units! Get out of there!" The captain shouted to the ground team, urging them to get off the ground before it was too late.

Planet side...

_"All units! Get out of there!"_

"yes captain" Jura said to the intercom, the group had just gotten to

but what about kratos? Dita said. wanting to wait for the man despite his order to leave

"if we don't leave now we'll all die" Jura said trying to convince the younger women. Truth be told she wasn't fully comfortable herself leaving a fellow crew mate to die, and if kratos was anything he was a crew mate to her and she knew that barnnete despite her abrasive personality thought the same.

you heard the guy , he wanted us to leave him" Hibiki said, being the only one of the four being stationed within their transport all ready to leave. The words kratos said to him still resonating within his thoughts as he stared blankly over the horizon trying to keep his mind from thinking about kratos .

He knew he shouldn't be thinking the things he was thinking about, but he couldn't help himself, his instincts were screaming at him that Spartan was dangerous and that he should take any chance he could at getting rid of him, but another part was telling him the exact opposite. It was confusing and it was starting to hurt his head the more thought he put into it.

"b-but" Dita stuttered

"Dita we have to go"

Base of statue...

Kratos continued to stare at the massive monument in front of him with a look on his face that mirrored the intense hatred he felt for himself as well as the image of the statue in front of him.

The image seemed to be burning into his very mind as its eyes seem to stare directly into his own the longer he looked.

The image of the original God of war was something he thought he would never see again in his life after the destruction of Olympus, but here this statue was in all of Ares merciless, psychotic glory staring Kratos down with nothing but contempt in its lifeless stone eyes.

The longer he stared at the statues face the more vivid the memories flared in his mind, Every life he took under the guidance of Ares recurred in front of him until he was viably shacking with rage. the sight of the corpse of him wife and child set him over the edge as he took a mighty swing with his twin blades to the massive statue.

the impact of the blow shattered the solid stone like it was a thin piece of glass with shards flying all around him from the force of the blow. hunks of the once richly detailed and engraved stone littered across the sand, kratos walked towards one hunk in particular in barley controlled rage. He squeezed his hands into fists so tightly he was going to draw blood as he stared directly into the eyes of Ares face.

With immense hatred for the image of his half brother as well as himself he brought back his arm and with all of his inhuman strength punched the stone with all of his might.

the only sound audible over the harsh winds of the dessert was a single dull thud of flesh and bone meeting solid stone. the blow was enough to turn the thick slab of stone into mere dust as the wind took it away to scatter it across the dessert.

Kratos stared silently at the space the giant rock slab once laid but a moment ago as the remnants of what was the statue head were being blown away.

he stood there watching as the dust drifted away from him, a thoughtful and regretful expression on his hard face. All he had done to secure his revenge and the prospect of any chance of the Gods surviving his wrath, any chance at all was giving his mind a spin, as more and more questions arouse in his mind.

kratos soon found himself shaken from his thoughts however when he sensed a danger even greater than the beast he destroyed but a moment ago. Many of the structures surrounding him erupted into bright red light as towers of solid red light shot up towards the sky, creating a dome of light encasing him and the surrounding area within its borders. Suddenly over the sound of the blowing wind, a voice devoid of any emotion suddenly spoke.

The land beneath his feet began to shake as the disembodied voice continued specking to the sole member of its audience.

10…

9…

8…

The countdown signaling the detonation of the structures around roared load and clear for anyone left to hear it, and it seemed that title alone belong to kratos at that particular point in time.

His inner conflicts push to the back of his head for the time being, kratos felt as if he was drawn towards a particular direction through the make shift maze of statues and structures. He had no idea where he was going or why he was even going but something he couldn't explain was almost dragging him down this path.

7…

6…

5…

Kratos stopped dead in his tracks the second he saw it, framed in what looked to him like solid gold built with unspeakable detail and craftsmanship was a familiar sight for the former god of war. what looked to be built straight into the statues base was a Hyperion Gate. Built by Hephaestus himself these once littered all across Mount Olympus and were used as a means for quick transportation between different parts of the mountain and the golden palace that occupied its peak. Kratos didn't ask questions for the reason why this was here along with the statue or even where this would take him. instead he jumped through the glowing blue center hoping for a safe arrival. 4... 3... 2...

Bridge…

"Time's up." Amarone replied as the countdown meter on her console reached a full zero.

On the bridge of the Nirvana, Magno and the rest of her crew watched with apprehension as the surface of the desert planet was engulfed in huge balls of fire and explosive force that covered the entire surface with orange-red flames. Duero's medical monitors were showing nothing but static. There was a deep foreboding silence all over the ship, as all of the pirates feared for the worst for their crew mates. Suddenly Duero's attention went back to the monitors as four readouts displaying the landing party vanguards went back online. like a literal bat out of hell, the drop ship blasted through the fire and flames that tore up the planet's surface.

"Only four?" BC said with growing apprehension. "Which ones?"

"I count Dita, Jura, Hibiki, and Barnette's Vanguards." Ezra replied.

"But where is Meia?"B.C said , asking the question everyone else on the bridge was wondering but was to afraid to ask.

"I'm sensing two life signals emitting from hibikis vanguard she must be in there with him" Ezra reported signifigently raising the spirits of the entire bridge crew.

The bridge crew brought up a monitor showing the inside of hibikis cockpit. what they found were the two pilots in the midst of a shouting match where meia demanded to know how she got there as they bickered and struggled for room like small children.

The captain could only smirk and shake her head slightly at the scene in front of her "Good to have them back isn't I was worried we'd get used to all that quiet"

"But wait where is Mr. kratos?"

Magnos smile instantly left her face as she looked through the monitors of all of the vanguards in search of the man but found none as she instantly thought of the worst.

The thoughts of his death sensed however when a monitor originating from the peksis chamber opened up to reveal the massive form of the kratos.

The grim look that the bridge crew held instantly evaporated from their faces when they relised kratos was able to get off the planet, how he managed to do it on the other hand plagued their mind.

"You gave us quite a scare, any particular reason you decided to scare us half to death"

"You were already so close to deaths door I assumed that's all It would take to finish you off, I'll have to try harder next time I suppose"

"Funny. very funny indeed, but do me a favor and stick to fighting monsters and leave the sarcastic remarks to me for now on" the captain said. her shock of finding him not only safe from the blast that encompassed the planet but also tucked away in the center of the ship, dying down as she wrote it off as another one of those unbelievable things about kratos she was sure she was hallucinating about due to her old age.

The rest of the bridge personnel let off a collective sigh of relief as well. It was then that one of the bridge crew namely Belvedere announced that she had received some data from the investigation.

"Read it." BC ordered, sounding almost as if she herself didn't want to hear about whatever the aliens were planning on doing.

Belvedere became a bit tense, but nodded, with a little prodding from Buzam.

"Attention. This year's harvest includes red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, lymph products, etc. All blood products are in good condition. That's where the data ends." she finished, feeling almost like she needed a shower to wash away what she just read out load.

The whole bridge personnel became quiet as they absorbed what they just heard. They were all shocked to their very core by the reality of their enemies plans. Magno looked down of the ground with a barely controlled anger as her hands balled into fist as she shook with rage. BC turned to her captain, in a vain attempt to calm the women down.

"They… They can't really mean…"

"I know BC, but the evidence is right here in front of us, and from what we have seen" the captain paused in her speech to look away from her second in command to look up towards the screen before continuing. "Our enemies meant harvest completely. We're nothing but vegetables to them!" Magno then looked out to the stars and gave an outraged look.

"Whoever our new enemies, these aliens are. two things are certain, they are quite formidable and we will not fail."

Vanguard Hanger...

In the hanger bay, the Vanguards minus Meia's Vanguard were now being sent back to dry dock, but Parfet had decided that the Vanguards were now to be repaired and maintained, in case the next battle would call for their use. With the aliens now stepping up their attacks to ground warfare, it was now going to be a growing possibility that they would be part of their forces.

Kratos and Duello were also in the Hanger Bay to the shock and delight of the ground crew. Dita as well as a few of the maintenance staff were off talking to the large man as Duello tried in vain to attempt to give him an examination after the battle Hibiki was leaning against the railing next to his partner watching everyone in the hanger, secretly waiting for the good doctor to come and check on the cold he was currently nursing. On several crates, Jura and Barnette after getting checked out by Duello, were resting against each other's back after their first taste of Vanguard combat. Leaning against another crate at another location sat Meia, who watched with a bit of anger at Hibiki and the Spartan.

_"Being saved by someone is bad enough. But being rescued by a man is a complete disgrace, let alone TWO men. And of all the men in this whole universe, I had to owe my life to THEM_! "Meia thought to herself as she glared at both Hibiki and kratos. Her pride was strong and right now it felt battered by the fact that the only reason she as well as the others were alive was because of kratos and hibiki. from up above Hibiki then noted her glares directed towards him then turned and was now glaring at her. She kept her stare up for a few moments then immediately tore her eyes away to look elsewhere.

Hibiki continued to glare at Meia.

"Man, what is her problem?"

"Cool it Hibiki, fighting with her right now isn't going to change things."Duello said, coming up from behind him in the docking bay.

"It's all right…the only thing that matters is that everyone is here and safe."

Hibiki took his eyes off the good doctor as he turned his vision towards the retreating form of kratos. images of kratos covered in the blood of his enemy flooded his mind. The immense awe he felt looking at the pale warrior standing over the fallen beasts corpse forever etched into him mind The fear of what the man before him was truly capable of flooded every fiber of his being "Yeah…achooo!"

Despite the day's events the only "injury amongst the group of vanguards pilots seemed to be a cold Hibiki caught due to the exposure from the planets harsh winds.

"I think it's time to head off to the Medical Bay though, you might really be sick this time."Duello said as he led the now sneezing hibiki down towards the infirmary.

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

"Pai check!"

Paiway was busy gathering new information on the events of the mission. Despite being only eleven years old, the young nurse had the eye of a seasoned detective, though she had no experience on what she was seeing,

_"Something strange will happen soon, I just know it!" _She thought as she scribbled down her observations. It was then that Pyoro flew next to her.

"I guess I'll never truly understand humans."

"What would be the point of it all when you do?" Paiway asked the little machine.

"What's the point of you taking photos right now?"

"You're a mean robot."

"Shut up."

* * *

nothing really to say hope you enjoyed. please leave a review


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